Tag Archives: Architectural History

The End of an Era



‘One of the State’s most exclusive boarding schools for girls is to close because the congregation which owns it has insufficient nuns to keep it open.
Our Lady’s secondary school, Clermont, in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is scheduled to close by June 2004, although final arrangements are subject to negotiation with parents.
The owners, the small Christian Education congregation, has not had a single entrant since 1973. In a statement yesterday it said: “There is no religious personnel for the management or trusteeship of this boarding school into the future.”
The order came to Ireland following an invitation from the former Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Charles McQuaid, in 1956. He wanted the order to provide places for children of Catholic parents who had been sending their daughters to boarding schools in Britain.’
Irish Times, February 2nd 2001





‘A drop in the number of nuns entering the Benedictine Order has forced the prestigious Kylemore Abbey School in Connemara, Co Galway to shut its doors.
After operating for 84 years as a boarding school, Mother Abbess Magdalena FitzGibbon OSB said the decline in vocations to the order had necessitated the closure of the secondary school.
“In common with other orders, many of our sisters have reached retirement age and with no new entrants, we no longer have the personnel necessary for the management and trusteeship of the school. We very much regret having to make this decision but having looked at the options, we are left with no alternative,” she said.
In a letter to parents, staff, the Department of Education and Science and local primary schools, Mother FitzGibbon said it was with great sadness that the trustees decided to close the school in August 2010.
The Benedictine community at the Abbey has now fallen to around 14 nuns.’
Irish Examiner, 6th February 2006





‘A long running tradition of education will come to an end in February when the Sisters of Mercy closes its convent on The Shannon [Enniscorthy]. The six remaining nuns resident in the building beside St. Senan’s will be dispersed to other accommodation in February, it was confirmed to parishioners at the weekend.
‘There is a sadness,’ admitted Sister Elizabeth Breen, who was a member of the full time staff at Coláiste Bríde until she retired in 2002. ‘We have very good memories of the town and the people.’
The order was first called in during 1858 to provide primary education, especially for the poor of Enniscorthy. They eventually moved out of primary schooling to provide a secondary school and they leave a legacy to the town in the form of Coláiste Bride, across the road from the soon to be closed convent.
‘The Mercy order made a massive contribution,’ mused Tom Sheridan, principal at Coláiste Bríde, which still often referred to in Enniscorthy by its nickname of ‘The Mercy’. It is eight years since there was a member of the order on the staff, since Sister Elizabeth Breen retired in 2002, though she has occasionally worked there since in a part-time capacity. Just last week she was back on the campus running religious retreats for first year students.’
Irish Independent, 23rd November 2010



Photographs of a former convent school in County Offaly

All that is Fantastically Eccentric in Architecture


‘It was in the hall of this Castle, then his principal residence, that James, first Duke and twelfth Earl of Ormond, received, as he sat at dinner, on 23d October 1641, intelligence of the great rebellion, in which he so eminently distinguished himself as Commander of the Royal Army. Since that period, none of the Ormond family have resided in Carrick-Castle, which is, however, maintained in good repair, and occupied by a private gentleman, who has evinced excellent taste in the alterations which he has made in the building without impairing the character of its architecture. It stands upon the banks of the river Suir, and near the town of Carrick-on-Suir. This castle was built in the year 1309, by Edmond le Boteler, or Butler, whose son was created Earl of Ormond in 1328. By him it was granted, in 1336, together with its demesnes, to the Franciscan monks of the Abbey of Carrick-on-Suir. But these venerable personages, who probably attached more value to the lands than to the fortress, appear to have permitted it to fall into decay, since we find that, in 1445, Sir Edmund Butler purchased the premises from the Monks, and rebuilt the Castle and Bridge.’
From Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland, 1830






‘Prior to starting to Waterford, let us not fail to view the fine old castle of the Ormonds, built in 1309, and still remaining in the family. The antique bridge, from the right bank of the river, just above the weir, presents all that is fantastically eccentric in architecture, the ivied house in the centre imparting to it an air of pleasing novelty. The parish chapel is said to have been built by the Ormonds, and the tower attached to the modern building bears proof of high antiquity. We hope tradition speaks “no scandal against Queen Elizabeth,” as the guide points out the grave of Thomas Butler, the putative natural son of her maiden Majesty.’
From The Tourist’s Illustrated Hand-Book for Ireland, 1859






‘I chanced that day to be at Carrick, and I walked to see the old castle. It is beautifully situated in a secluded lawn overhanging the Suir, at a distance of a few hundred yards from the eastern end of the town. I could not ascertain the date of the older, or castellated part of the edifice: the more modern part was erected by Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, in 1565, which date is displayed on the wall of the hall; on which, likewise, there is a rude fresco representing Queen Elizabeth, with the initials E.R. On the opposite wall there is another fresco of the founder, who is said by the tradition of the castle to have found favour as a lover of that princess. The tradition found its way into France, and the family of Lord Galmoye is stated, in a French genealogical work, to descend from her Majesty and her Irish admirer…The curious old mansion founded by “Black Tom Butler” is still habitable. Its front presents a long row of gables in the fashion of Elizabethan manor-houses, with a large Oriel window over the porch. Its large deserted chambers are just as spectral personages might regularly honour with their visits. I accordingly asked if the house was haunted, and was told by the person who showed it, that in the days of the Ormonds, a ghost had been constantly there – a utilitarian ghost, apparently; for he used to officiate as volunteer shoeblack, and to discharge other duties of domestic labour.
The largest apartments are in the upper storey. There is a noble drawing room about sixty feet long, which contains two decorated chimneys. Whatever be the worth of the Galmoye tradition, old “Tom Butler” as the guide familiarly called him, was anxious to record his devotion to Elizabeth; and this he has done by the frequent repetition of her Majesty’s initials and arms in the quaint stucco ornaments of the ceiling.’
From Ireland and her Agitators by W.J. O’Neill, 1867. 

In an Irish Country Garden




The garden front of Ballyvolane, County Cork. Dating back to 1728, the original house was constructed for Sir Richard Pyne, a former Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, of seven bays and three storeys. Almost 150 years later, in 1872 George Pyne, who had recently acquired the estate, commissioned local architect and antiquarian Richard Rolt Brash to remodel the building to give it the present Italianate appearance, as well as remove the top floor. The original gardens at Ballyvolane were laid out in the early 19th century, but much of what can be seen today is due to the work of the Green family who bought the place 70 years ago in 1953. Next Friday, June 30th I shall be giving a talk at Ballyvolane on Ireland’s country house gardens, with cocktails beforehand and dinner after. For more information about this event, please see: Robert O’Byrne aka The Irish Aesthete ‘Irish Country House Gardens’ Talk and Dinner (ballyvolanehouse.ie)



A Neighbourhood Replete with History



A modest village in County Laois, Aghaboe (from the Irish Achadh Bhó, meaning ‘field of cows’), has been briefly mentioned here before (see Happily Disposed in the Most Elegant Taste « The Irish Aesthete) in relation to Heywood, some 12 miles away, where a pair of mediaeval windows have been incorporated into an 18th century folly. But Aghaboe itself deserves attention, since it was once the site of an important early Christian monastery, adjacent to which is now a restored early 18th century house along with other buildings of interest. 





The original abbey at Aghaboe was established in the 6th century by St Canice, who was interred here and around whose tomb would grow a substantial monastic settlement. In the 8th century, one of the abbots was St Fergal (otherwise Virgilius), mathematician and astronomer who would later move first to France and then to Austria where he became Abbot of St Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg. Nothing from this period in the monastery’s history survives due to repeated assaults on the place. The abbey was attacked and plundered by the Vikings in 913 before being rebuilt in 1052 with the relics of St Canice enshrined here. It was burned again in 1116 and rebuilt in 1189. In 1234 an Augustinian priory was established on the site (a Norman motte and bailey had already been constructed nearby). However, both the priory and a town which had grown up around it were burnt in 1346 by Diarmaid Mac Giollaphádraig, St Canice’s shrine being destroyed in the process.  In 1382 Finghan MacGillapatrick, Lord of Upper Ossory established a Dominican friary here and this survived until its suppression in 1540. What remains at Aghaboe are traces of the Dominican church, a long, barn-like building without aisles typical of the mendicant preaching orders, with one transept at the south-west end. There is a fine window at the east end of the nave and an ogee-headed piscina nearby on the south wall. In the transept, the east wall features a tall arched niche and there are also a couple of smaller aumbries. A watercolour by Daniel Grose dated 1792 depicts an elaborately carved doorcase on the south side but this has since disappeared. A few other traces of the church’s former decoration survive on the exterior of the Church of Ireland church lying behind the ruin: this dates from 1818 although the curious tower here – the lower portion square-shaped, the upper an awkwardly-placed octagon – may be a survivor from the Middle Ages, along with the three much-weathered heads over the west door. 





Just a few hundred yards south-east of the ruined and present churches, and overlooking both, stands Aghaboe House, a curiously double-fronted residence. The south facade, thought to date from c.1730, is of seven bays and two storeys, with a fine limestone pedimented doorcase. The north side is some 40 years later and is of five bays, centred on fan-lit doorway below a Venetian window above which a pediment breaks the shallow roofline. Internally, the house – which may incorporate elements of an older residence – is similarly divided into two parts, suggesting it was originally one room deep, with the larger rooms to the north, not least the double-height staircase hall with benefits from the Venetian window on the upper floor. Recently offered for sale, Aghaboe House was in a semi-ruinous condition when bought almost 40 years ago in 1984 by its present owner who has since gradually restored the building, along with others on the site, including another two-storey block diagonally to the immediate east. This might once have had a match on the western side; if so, it has long since disappeared. For much of the last quarter of the 18th century, Aghaboe House was home to the historian and Church of Ireland clergyman Rev Edward Ledwich (author of the text accompanying Francis Grose’s Antiquities of Ireland, published 1791-95) which suggests it could have served as a glebe house until a new one was built in 1820. The enlargement of the main house might even have been undertaken by Ledwich while he was in residence, since he and his wife had at least four daughters and four sons. Along with its neighbours, Aghaboe House contributes to an assemblage of buildings covering some 1,500 years of Irish history.



For more information about Aghaboe House and its sale, see: Aghaboe House, Aghaboe, Ballacolla, Co. Laois – Property.ie

An Irregular Beauty




Caught in the rain, this is Ballyannan Castle, a semi-fortified house built c.1650 for St John Brodrick, an English soldier who had arrived in Ireland almost a decade earlier as a captain of foot. By deft political footwork, he survived the turmoils of the rest of the century, only dying in 1711 at the age of 84 and leaving behind several sons, one of whom became the first Viscount Midleton. While the Brodrick family survives, Ballyannan did not do so, abandoned by the mid-18th century and already ruinous in 1786. The house is notable for its circular corner towers above which rise exceptionally tall chimneys. Ballyannan was once surrounded by extensive and elaborate pleasure gardens, described in 1743 as containing ‘all the irregular beauties that charm the fancy and delight the senses,’ but little now remains in fields given over to agricultural use, other than a small brick summerhouse (alas, heavy rain discouraged a visit to this. Another time…)



A Complex History


The name of Newcastle, County Longford would seem to indicate that the present house, or an earlier one on or near this site, replaced a more ancient building. The earliest information on the place seems to be from 1680 when the lands of its demesne, formerly part of the O’Farrell territory, are recorded as being purchased by Robert Choppyne (or Choppin) who built here ‘a fayre house and a wooden bridge.’ By this date, he had already become High Sheriff of Longford three years earlier and would go on to represent County Longford in the Irish House of Commons in 1692 before dying a year or two later. The Newcastle property was left to his nephew Anthony Sheppard who continued to acquire more land in the area, but not so fortunate when it came to continuing his line: he and his wife had four sons who died young and one who survived to adulthood, only to predecease his father. And while the estate was left to Sheppard’s daughter Mary, who had married Arthur St. Leger, Viscount Doneraille, she also died without heirs not long after.  So Newcastle passed to Anthony Sheppard’s widowed sister, Frances Harman (her late husband, Sir Wentworth Harman, had died in 1714 when ‘coming in a dark night from Chapel-Izod, his coach overturning, tumbled down a precipice, and he dies in consequence of the wounds and bruises he received’). For many years, the estate was managed by her younger son, the Rev Cutts Harman, who appeared here some months ago with regard to Castlecor (see A Worthy Recipient « The Irish Aesthete). Once again, the direct line failed and so, on the death of the Rev Harman, Castlecor passed to his nephew, Laurence Harman Parsons, on condition that the latter adopt his uncle’s surname: accordingly, he became Laurence Parsons Harman. He would also, in due course, be created Baron Oxmantown, then Viscount Oxmantown and finally first Earl of Rosse in 1806. His only surviving child was a daughter, Frances, who married Robert King, first Viscount Lorton, of Rockingham, County Roscommon. Their younger son, Laurence Harman King-Harman inherited both the Newcastle and Rockingham estates; on his death in 1875 the two were divided, with Newcastle passing to a younger son, Colonel Wentworth King-Harman. The  estate reached its largest extent during this period, running to some 38,616 acres and described in 1900 as ‘a master-piece of smooth and intricate organisation, with walled gardens and glasshouses, its dairy, its laundry, its carpenters, masons and handymen of all estate crafts, the home farm, the gamekeepers and retrievers kennels, its saw-mill and paint shop and deer park for the provision of venison. The place is self-supporting to a much greater degree than most country houses in England.’





The core of Newcastle could date from the late 17th century when Robert Choppyne built his ‘fayre house’ here. However, there is no visible evidence of this building, at least on the exterior where the main facade suggests a classic house from the early-to-mid 18th century of seven bays and two storeys (with perhaps the third added later). Around 1785, soon after Laurence Harman Parsons had inherited the estate, enlargements were made with the construction of slightly projecting wings, single-storey to the east and two-storey to the west. Further alterations took place in the mid-19th century when Newcastle passed into the possession of Laurence Harman King-Harman; the Dutch-style gable over the centre bay probably dates from this period, along with the entrance porch containing a family coat of arms. Internally, the building has undergone many alterations also, so that it is now not easy to detect what is from any particular period. However, there are striking – and now highly coloured – neo-classical Adamesque ceilings in the former drawing and dining rooms, the former featuring a large oval set in a rectangular frame, in which corner panels depict musical instruments. The dining room ceiling is centred on a diamond pattern decorated with urns and scrolling foliage. There is also some extant neo-classical plasterwork on the main staircase.  





While the Newcastle estate may have run to more than 38,000 acres in the 1880s, by the time Colonel Wentworth King-Harman died in 1919, various land acts meant that it had shrunk to less than 1,000 acres. His son, Major Alexander King-Harman, sold more land to the Department of Lands in 1934, leaving just the demesne thereafter. Following the major’s death in 1949, Newcastle was inherited by a cousin, Captain Robert Douglas King-Harman, who two years later sold the house and surrounding land for £11,000 to a religious order, the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary. The house was used as a retirement home for nuns and also as a boarding school, but the Missionary Sisters remained for less than two decades, leaving in 1968, after which Newcastle changed hands on a number of occasions and was run as an hotel. Although it is not open to the public at the moment, the property’s current owner, a Hong Kong businessman, applied to the local authority last August for planning permission to create a holiday park on the surrounding land, incorporating 99 mobile homes, together with ‘an area for touring pitches and casual camping spaces’, a reception hut, a playground and separate grass play area. The adjacent woodland accommodates a Centre Parcs holiday resort which also intends to expand its facilities.





Text here…

A Pocket Mansion




Currently for sale, this miniature Tudorbethan house stands a short distance north-east from the site of Kiltanon, County Clare. A substantial property, the latter was built in the 1830s for the Molonys, an ancient Irish family, one of whom – John O’Molony, Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick – followed James II to Paris where he helped to found the Irish College, in which he was buried following his death in 1702. In Ireland, the Molonys subsequently converted to the Established Church but they kept a souvenir of their Catholic forebear: a grey marble table inlaid with two hands of old French cards and a knave of diamonds torn in half as if they had just been thrown down. Seemingly, this piece of furniture had been presented by Louis XIV to the bishop in restitution for the king’s fit of pique over a game of cards in which the cleric was a participant. The table was supposedly lost, along with the rest of Kiltanon’s contents, when the building was burnt by the IRA in September 1920. Given its (somewhat weathered) appearance, it would appear that this little house was once part of the Molony estate and constructed around the same time as the main residence itself.



A Monument to the Past



Few people today will be familiar with the name of William Delany, Jesuit priest and one of the great educationalists of the late 19th century. Born the son of a baker in County Carlow, in 1860 at the age of 25 he was sent to teach at St Stanislaus’s College, then a Jesuit secondary school in County Offaly. Ten years later, Delany became the college’s Rector and embarked on an expansionist policy which led to rebukes from his superiors (the school ran up substantial debts due to his building programme). What they, and everyone else, could not deny, was the quality of education received by students at St Stanislaus’s College, which led them to seek further academic qualifications. At the time, the Catholic University of Ireland, founded in 1851, could not legally confer degrees, and Cardinal Cullen had forbidden Roman Catholics from attending other third-level institutions because they were non-denominational, denouncing them as ‘godless colleges.’ From 1876 Delany overcame this problem by entering his students for the London University examinations, where they achieved one hundred percent success: in 1881 a First Place and First Exhibition were secured by boys at St Stanislaus’s College, competing against thousands of English entrants. Delany would soon leave the school, and was instead appointed the first president of the new University College Dublin (the successor to the Catholic University) where he achieved equal success. However, despite its academic achievements, in 1886 St Stanislaus’s College closed as a boys’ school. The debts caused by Delany’s building programmes, along with the shortage of Jesuit priests in Ireland, forced the order to make certain decisions, one of which was to focus attention Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare, despite the fact that the latter’s record was not as good as that of the County Offaly school.  






St Stanislaus’s College, popularly known as Tullabeg, dates back to 1818. The land on which it stands had been provided a few years earlier by a local woman, Maria O’Brien, whose father, a wealthy Roman Catholic merchant from Dublin, had bought an estate in the area: Rahan Lodge, originally built c.1740 as a hunting lodge. Initially it was intended that the new college would act as a novitiate for training Jesuit priests. However, before long it began to serve as a preparatory school for boys who would then go on to Clongowes Wood College. After several decades the school began to offer second level education to students and, as already mentioned, continued to do so until 1886. Two years later, a new purpose was found for the property, when it became the novitiate for the Irish province of the Jesuits; every young man who entered the order thereafter would spend a period of time at Tullabeg. This continued to be the case until 1930 when the novitiate was transferred to Emo Court, County Laois. Next the place became a faculty of philosophy for Jesuits who had already finished their studies at university. A further change of direction occurred in 1962 when the order decided to make Tullabeg a retreat centre; this finally closed in 1991. Thereafter the property seems to have had a chequered history, at one stage being used as a nursing home while a nine-hole golf course was installed in the grounds. 






St Stanislaus’s College is a building of diverse parts and periods, the whole adding up to a very substantial complex. The earliest part dates back to the second decade of the 19th century, when a south-facing block of three storeys over basement was constructed, its architectural style very much aping that of country houses of the period, with a flight of stone steps leading up to the main entrance, the door flanked by Ionic columns and topped by a generous fanlight. Over the following years, projecting wings were added on either side of this block, and then a church built to the immediate west. Once St Stanislaus’s College began to take in secondary school students, additional space was required, so in the early 1860s a large block to the east was added. Known as the Seaver Wing (after the rector of the period), the building, which is centred on a large three-bay breakfront featuring substantial tripartite fenestration, incorporated classrooms, dormitories and a refectory. Later in the same decade, a further wing was added parallel to and north of the original house; this held a college chapel and study hall, along with further accommodation. The work of this period was designed by successful Dublin architect Charles Geoghegan. During his time as rector, William Delany commissioned further work on the premises, rebuilding the students’ chapel, converting another chapel into a study hall and remodelling the east wing; he also had part of the local river deepened and enclosed to provide decent swimming facilities. Little of substance appears to have changed thereafter until the mid-1940s when Fr Donal O’Sullivan, then rector of St Stanislaus’s, commissioned the modernist architect Michael Scott to design a new chapel in the building; this had stained glass windows by Evie Hone, a timber altar and statues by sculptor Laurence Campbell and terracotta Stations of the Cross by French sculptor Robert Villiers. When the Jesuits left Tullabeg in 1991, they removed all these fittings and installed them in some of the order’s other properties. So those items were at least saved from the vandalism and decay that awaited the rest of the place and has led to its present decay. What can be done with such a vast range of buildings? Tullabeg is in a relatively remote part of the Irish midlands, in a rural area with few facilities. No doubt this isolation was beneficial when St Stanislaus’s operated as a religious house, but is now a distinct drawback. It would appear a few commercial ventures were attempted or considered here, but not found viable. So it sits, neglected and falling into further dereliction, a monument to another, now passed, era in the country’s history. 


In the Midle



Midleton College, County Cork was originally endowed in 1696 by Elizabeth Villiers, Countess of Orkney, former Maid of Honour to Mary Stuart (who had died two years earlier) and former mistress of the latter’s husband, William III. He had granted Lady Orkney large tracts of land in Ireland, and some of these were used to endow the institution, intended for the education of Protestant boys. The building itself appears to have been constructed some 20 years later, the first schoolmaster, the Rev. George Chinnery, being appointed in August 1717. As originally constructed, the building consisted of an H-plan block of two storeys over basement; writing in 1750, Charles Smith referred to a ‘handsome dome’ over the centre but this has long-since disappeared. On the ground floor, the centre of the property was occupied by a school room, lit by the large arched windows on either side of the main entrance approached by a broad flight of steps; the dormitory, lit by three oculi, was directly above, and the schoolmaster lived in one of the wings. The side elevations are of eight bays, the four central ones slightly advanced. The rear of the house shares many features with the facade. The architect is unknown, although the name of Benjamin Crawley, who was involved in the building of a couple of country houses in the south-east of Ireland during this period, has been mentioned. However, the interiors were thoroughly altered in the early 19th century and then later extensions added to the block, so only the exterior bearssome re semblance to the college’s appearance when first constructed. 


Encircled


The Tower House appears on this site regularly, often under the guise, or at least the name, of a castle. However, tower houses are distinct from, and appeared later than, castles which were introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans in the 12th and 13th century and are substantial defensive structures, fortified keeps on raised ground within a walled enclosure. According to archaeologist Colm Donnelly, tower houses should be regarded as a species within the castle genus. While they were often erected inside a protective bawn wall, the typical tower house was a less complex building than the Norman castle, being, as its name implies, a tall, single tower. In this respect, the structures bear similarity to what are known as Peel Towers in northern England and the Scottish borders, and which date from much the same period. 





The origins of the Irish tower house date back to 1429. In that year, a statute issued by Henry VI, King of England (and ostensibly Lord of Ireland) declared, ‘It is agreed and asserted that every liege man of our Lord, the King of the said Counties, who chooses to build a Castle or Tower House sufficiently embattled or fortified, wither the next ten years to wit 20 feet in length, 16 feet in width and 40 feet in height or more, that the commons of the said Counties shall pay to the said person, to build the said Castle or Tower ten pounds by way of subsidy.’ The ‘said Counties’ to which this document refers covered the area taking in parts of what are now Meath, Louth and Kildare in which English authority still held sway and which was known as the Pale. And the intent behind the statute was to ensure better protection of that area from incursion by those who lived outside its perimeter.  It is often proposed that this piece of legislation, with its financial incentive, did much to encourage the popularity of tower houses within the boundaries of the Pale. However, soon enough they also began to appear elsewhere throughout the country, their construction popular among both descendants of the Anglo-Norman families and members of the Gaelic nobility. They continued to be built for some 200 years and it was only in the first half of the 17th century that they were superseded by fortified houses. It has been estimated that between 1400 and 1650 in the region of 3,000 tower houses were constructed. Many of them survive to the present day, in various states of repair.




No two tower houses are identical but customarily they were square or rectangular in shape, running to four or five storeys in height and with a single arched doorcase on the ground floor providing the only point of access. A number survive in County Tipperary which, unusually, are circular; one of these at Moorstown was shown here three years ago (see In the Round « The Irish Aesthete). Here is another, Ballynahow which is exceptionally well-preserved. It is believed to date from the early 16th century when erected by a branch of the Purcells, a family closely allied to the powerful Butlers, and whose main base was at Loughmoe (see A Former Family Seat « The Irish Aesthete): the latter incorporates a more typical tower house into a later fortified house. Ballynahow, on the other hand, is free-standing and, as already mentioned, cylindrical in shape. Thereafter much of its design and layout follows the typical pattern, with a large vaulted ground floor reached by an arched door on the east side (with a murder hole strategically placed above) and only narrow slits in the walls at this low level to provide light to the interior while not leaving those inside exposed or visible to attack. Larger window openings can be found on the upper floors, along with substantial chimneypieces as these were the main residential quarters for the occupants. They were reached thanks to a stone spiral staircase climbing around the immediate inside of the building. Four machiolations are evenly spaced along the roofline; the tower house would originally have been finished with a conical dome. It appears that as late as the 1840s the lower floors of Ballynahow were still in residential use and this may help to explain why it is in such good condition.