Tag Archives: Castleblayney

Little Hope


Late last January it was reported that a structural engineer was unable to gain access to the Market House in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, following the collapse of an internal load-bearing wall. The building was declared a public safety risk, a safety cordon erected to prevent access, and then the roof removed in order to avoid further collapse. Occupying a prominent site in the centre of the town, the core of the market house dates from c.1790 when constructed by the 11th Lord Blayney to encourage the local linen trade. In 1856 the building was extended with the addition of a courthouse, the principal front which faces down West Street topped by a polygonal cupola with copper dome.


The property of Monaghan County Council, until the start of the present century Castleblayney Market House was used by the Court Services and also served as the town Library. However, failure to maintain the property meant that in 2003 the local authority had to condemn the market house as unsafe: it has stood empty and steadily more dilapidated ever since, so the collapse of an internal wall earlier this year should come as no surprise. A key building in Castleblayney, the market house is – naturally – listed by the county council, its owners, for protection. That protection does not seem to be forthcoming.

No Hope



The sad remains of Hope Castle, County Monaghan. Built on the edge of Castleblayney, the house – like the town – owes its existence to the Blayney family who settled here at the start of the 17th century. Initially they lived in a castle built by Sir Edward Blayney, created first Baron Blayney in 1721 but at the end of the 18th century his descendant, the 11th Lord Blayney commissioned a new house designed by Dublin-born Robert Woodgate who for several years had worked in London for Sir John Soane. In 1853 the 12th Lord Blayney sold the estate to the rich Henry Thomas Hope; he enlarged and remodelled the building in what has been called ‘a frivolous kind of Italianate classicism.’ Occupied by Queen Victoria’s son the Duke of Connaught for several years at the start of the last century when he served Commander of the Forces in Ireland, Hope Castle was sold in 1928 and served as a military barracks and then a county hospital before being occupied until the mid-1970s by Franciscan nuns. It was then acquired by the local county council, which leased it to an hotelier who was permitted to strip out all of Woodgate’s interiors. In 2010 the building was badly damaged by arsonists and has remained in a sorry state ever since.