Tag Archives: Heritage at Risk

If You Go Down to the Woods…



At the top of a long, tree-lined laneway and adjacent to the very fragmentary remains of a sixth century monastery founded by a disciple of Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise, this is Leitir or Letter House, County Offaly. A two-storey residence dating back to the 17th century, sadly it is now in an advanced state of dilapidation and at risk of being lost forever. The building’s most distinctive feature are the tall stone chimney stacks, located not at either gable end but on the rear wall.



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A Sadder Sight than One would Think



‘It was a sadder sight than one would think,
To see that ruined church upon the hill,
Deserted, dreary, lone and desolate;
But then its spire would point to heaven still.
Like standard-bearer wounded in the fight,
Who, with his last remaining strength, upholds
His nation’s banner; so this dying church,
In its last hours, seemed bent on saving souls.

‘Twas sad to see the windows broken through;
But then they let God’s air and sunshine in:
The church, once closed to keep all errors out,
Now seemed as if it prayed more light to win.
And early spring-birds entered fearless there,
Within the church-pale unconverted came,
And built their nests within the pulpit’s shade,
And never dreamed there could be any blame…’





‘I wondered if the ancient fathers slept
In peace, within the churchyard just away,
While this, their pride, their consecrated dome,
So all unheeded crumbled to decay;
And more, if creeds escape while churches fall,
If they’ve no broken doors and windows, too,
By time’s or progress’ hand,—through which the light
Of higher truths comes brightly streaming through.

I climbed with fear the staircase weak and old,
That tottered like a ship by tempest driven,
And wondered if the saints had feared as much,
When through its creed they groped their way to heaven;
And stood within the galleries that ran
From end to end, and bent and gazed below
With heart that trembled like the saints of old,
Lest all should crumble, and I “sink to woe.”…’





‘And, as I gazed, and thought how sad that now
No feet of worshippers its old aisles trod,—
Alike forsaken by its builder, man,
And him to whom they gave, its owner, God;
I heard the voice of children in their mirth,
A group of little faces gathered there,
All unbaptized, some fresh from God’s own hand,
Who played and sported where they knelt in prayer.

I lingered till the human angels passed,—
Until the sun was growing faint and dim,
When, soft and sweet, amid the, stillness there,
The birds—Heaven’s choir—began their vesper hymn;
And while I listened to their “Te Deum,”
That made the ruin with its echo ring,
I said, “Not half so sweet the anthems loud,
That many souls in dim cathedrals sing!”‘



Extracts from The Ruined Church by Achsa Sprague (published posthumously, 1864)
Photographs show the ruins of Coolaghflags church, County Kilkenny, a late mediaeval chapel which was enlarged c.1750.

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Different Fates



The former Royal Irish Constabulary barracks in Mullinahone, County Tipperary dates from c.1850 and was variously occupied by that organisation, then the Black and Tans during the War of Independence before becoming the local Garda station. However, like many other such premises in small towns, it closed down some decades ago and then stood empty until bought in 2014 when work began turning the building into a private residence. While the interior was gutted, relatively little else was done before the property came back on the market four years ago. A recent planning application by an Irish cosmetics company proposes turning the old barracks into a manufacturing hub for its products. No such luck for another building on the opposite side of the street. This is said initially to have served as a watermill before housing militia and cavalry during the 1798 Rebellion. It was then used as a courthouse until 1922, while the rear of the property acted as a local butter market and communal hall. Despite being described by the National Built Heritage Service as ‘a building of considerable historic resonance in the county’ it has been allowed to fall into the present sad state and two years ago was placed on the local authority’s Derelict Sites register. .



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Making No Sense


In Ireland, there were a number of landed families with the surname Browne, not all of whom were related to each other. There were, for example, the Brownes who eventually became Earls of Kenmare and lived in County Kerry. Then there were the Brownes, Barons Oranmore and Browne, based in Castle MacGarrett, County Mayo. And in the same county were another family of Brownes, who became Marquesses of Sligo and lived in Westport. They were descended from one John Browne, a cartographer who came to Ireland in the 16th century and held the office of Sheriff of Mayo after preparing a map of the county. He was killed in February 1589 during an encounter at Burrishoole at the start of an uprising by the native Irish but by then had already acquired land in an area of the country known as the Neale (believed to derive from the Irish An Éill, meaning a strip of land). Here his descendants would live for the next few centuries, building a substantial house in the 1730s, of which only the shell of one wing now survives, the rest having been demolished some 200 years later in 1939. But evidence of the Brownes’ presence survives elsewhere around the former estate. 




Three strange structures can be found within the old Browne demesne at the Neale, the best-known being the Pyramid, a dry-stone construction – like the surrounding field boundaries – dating from c.1765 and comprising nine steps that climb to a height of 30 feet from a base more than 40 feet wide. The Pyramid is believed to have been commissioned by Sir John Browne, first Lord Kilmaine, to commemorate his elder brother George who died in 1765. On the rise of the fourth step is a cut-stone plaque in Latin, praising the deceased who is described as ‘best beloved’ and a man whose arms  ‘were formerly the great glory and protection of his country.’ Reputed to have been designed by Sir John’s brother-in-law, the first Earl of Charlemont (who had travelled to Egypt some years before while on his Grand Tour), the pyramid’s pinnacle was seemingly once crowned with a lead statue of Apollo.





Refurbished by the Office of Public Works in 1990, the Pyramid is in better condition than the other two follies erected by the Brownes on their estate at the Neale. A short distance to the south can be found an hexagonal temple. It consists of six plain Doric columns supporting an entablature with carved cornice and frieze. Likely once roofed, the temple stands on a high hexagonal stone base which can be entered from the rear. Inside this, a series of vaults spring from the outer walls to a central hexagonal arrangement of piers, which support the columns of the structure above. Frequently, the lower portion of such buildings was used by servants, where they could prepare tea and other refreshments for the owners who sat in the space above admiring the parkland around them. Unfortunately, little is known about the date or designer of the building, but it may have been constructed in the 1770s when the first Lord Kilmaine was engaged in landscaping this part of the estate.
And finally, a little to the west and in woodland on the periphery of the former demesne can be found a very odd structure known as the Gods of the Neale. Set within a tiered rusticated structure (and surrounded by fragrant wild garlic when the Irish Aesthete recently visited) are carvings of three mythical figures, a griffin, a unicorn and an angel. Below them, a large tablet bearing the date 1753 carries a complex text that claims that the figures were found in a cave nearby and that they were the ancient Gods of the Neale, ‘or the Gods of Felicity.’ It’s all rather absurd, but that’s an important characteristic of follies: they don’t have to make sense. This is certainly true of the three surviving examples in the Neale, which means they are all the more precious. 


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Wilful Waste



Following Monday’s entry on St Loman’s Hospital in Mullingar, County Westmeath, nothing better exemplifies the Health Service Executive’s indifference to the condition of historic buildings supposedly under its care than the state of the property’s gatelodge. This charming little property, adjacent to a road leading into the centre of the town, dates from the last quarter of the 19th century and was soon after extended in a style ‘similar to a Swiss cottage’ to provide a residence for the institution’s head male attendant. When surveyed for buildingsofireland.ie in 2004 it was in decent condition and used as an office. Since then, instead of being refurbished and providing much needed accommodation, it has been allowed to fall into dereliction.



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Squandering National Resources


On 13 September 1847, the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland made an order that an Asylum for Lunatic Poor be constructed near Mullingar, County Westmeath, to accommodate 300 inmates and to be known as the Mullingar Lunatic Asylum. The following year a site for the building was established after 25 acres and nine perches of land on the edge of the town were purchased from a local man, Thomas Tuite, for the sum of £829. Work began in 1850, the architect given the commission being Dubliner John Skipton Mulvany, responsible for many railway stations and other similar public buildings throughout Ireland. When completed in 1855, some £35,430 had been spent on the hospital. That sum and the cost of a number of other such asylums around the country led to allegations of extravagance and an investigation by the Treasury Commissioners later that year. Specifically in relation to the Mullingar asylum, complaints centred on what some deemed overuse of architectural decoration such as projecting bay windows and Tudoresque chimneystacks, as well as the employment of high-quality limestone which had to be brought by cart from a quarry some 20 miles away. However, the investigating officers, while conceding that there may have been too much embellishment, judged the resultant structure to be ‘pleasing in style and built in a manner highly creditable to the architects engaged and ornamental to the country.’ The south-facing, three-storey building runs to an extraordinary 41 bays, with an advanced central five bay entrance incorporating a single-bay gable-fronted section and advanced single-bay gable-fronted sections on either side, plus further advanced full-height gable-fronted blocks at the east and west ends. Between these, the risk of potential monotony is avoided by the intermittent deployment of shallow projecting gable-fronted bays which give the façade a consistently engaging rhythm and make it a delight to behold.The north side is now harder to read, since it has been much altered over the past 170 years,  but intermittent glimpses suggest it was always plainer and more functional in appearance. Growing numbers of patients being admitted, meant that not much more than a decade after first opening, the hospital needed to expand and following the acquisition of a further ten acres on either side of the site, in 1868 architect George Moyers was appointed to design extensions to each end of Mulvany’s original block, as well as a new dining hall and general purpose room, at the cost of just over £4,698: this work was completed in 1870. By this time, there were 400 inmates on the premises and over the following decades a number of substantial freestanding buildings were erected around the campus, beginning with Petitswood, built in 1895 and accommodating 150 male patients. 






The original building that opened as Mullingar Lunatic Asylum, later renamed St Loman’s Hospital continued to serve the same function, albeit with modifications to the services provided, until some 13 years ago. Long before that date there had been discussion about the suitability of the building, particularly in the closing decades of the last century when long-term residential care for psychiatric patients began to be discouraged, particularly in older institutions constructed in an era with different attitudes towards mental health. One of the problems which the hospital faced was insufficient maintenance: not an unusual phenomenon in Ireland. A much-cited report produced by the country’s Inspector of Mental Health Services in 2007 noted that ‘Apart from the admission units, the conditions in areas of St Loman’s Hospital remained very poor with damp, peeling paint, tiles lifting on floors, poor sanitary facilities, curtains falling down and drab and institutional-style furnishings and decor. A significantly large number of these areas were dirty, including sluice rooms and bathrooms and toilets. In short, the conditions that people with enduring mental illness have to live in permanently in St Loman’s Hospital were deplorable… every effort must be made to close the hospital immediately.’ In other words, the building had not been properly maintained but instead allowed to fall into a bad state of repair. In consequence, it was inevitable that in December 2013 the last ward in the building was moved elsewhere on the site and the building closed, seemingly without any plans being made for its future use.






In the 13 years since its closure, St Loman’s Hospital has sat empty and falling into an ever-worse condition of repair: a number of intrepid venturers have gained access to the interior and posted images showing abandoned wards and public areas, often still containing furnishings that might be salvaged and given alternative use. The problem, as so often with national bodies such as Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), is that there appears to be a want of concern over the care of what are public assets: this is a property which belongs to the Irish people and which is being permitted to decline in value through inadequate maintenance. The HSE has form here, see: A Poor Example « The Irish Aesthete. The indifference displayed time and again towards these historic buildings is truly shocking, and represents an appalling waste of the country’s resources. In 2024, more than a decade after the hospital had been closed to patients, the HSE announced that it was ‘open to finding an alternative use’ for the building, instead of actively seeking to do so at a time when many citizens struggle to find somewhere to live and the figures for homelessness climb ever higher. Last December, the organisation’s national director and head of Strategic Health Infrastructure and Capital Delivery informed a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health, ‘If we identify a property surplus to our requirements, we put it on the state register in line with all our requirements for disposing of state assets’ while another employee, this time a regional executive officer, advised that discussions were ‘ongoing’ with regard to St Loman’s. In this instance, as in so many others, there appears to be no particular rush to engage in the ‘disposal’ of the building as it is left to deteriorate still further. There is absolutely no reason why this should be so. One large property, formerly called St Patrick’s and constructed in the 1930s to provide accommodation to some of the hospital’s male patients, was successfully redeveloped in the late 1990s as Deravarra House, a private apartment block. If and when some similar scheme is devised for the original hospital here, it will benefit the public purse less and cost whoever takes on the task more – thanks to the dilatory behaviour of the HSE.


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The Country for Ruins

Lackeen Castle, County Tipperary

A request to speak at a forthcoming academic event exploring various perceptions of ruins has led the Irish Aesthete to consider, not for the first time, what might be the particular appeal of historic buildings that have fallen into decay, and why there are so many of them in this country. ‘To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime,’ Henry James confessed in Italian Hours (1873) ‘and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.’ Tumbling roofs and crumbling walls have long exerted a particular appeal, as was noted by Rose Macaulay in her wonderful 1953 book Pleasure of Ruins when she rhetorically enquired ‘what part is played by morbid pleasure in decay, by righteous pleasure in retribution…’ The morbidity of ruins without doubt helps to explain their attraction: in a state of decay, they allow us to engage in romantic speculation which may or may not be accurate. There are certainly many opportunities to engage in such hypothesising in Ireland. In some instances, they can be wonderfully picturesque, a fact highlighted by the clergyman and author William Gilpin who in 1782 published his highly influential book, Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770. Among the points he made was that in landscape painting the presence of a ruined castle or abbey would add to the work what he called ‘consequence.’ The truth of this observation had already been made apparent in the previous century by a number of French artists – Poussin, Claude Lorain, Dughet – based in Italy where they produced paintings in which ruins were often a notable feature.

Clonfert Palace, County Galway

Rappa Castle, County Mayo

Dromore Castle, County Limerick

Graffan House, County Offaly

Works such as those painted by the likes of Poussin et al are known to have had a critical influence on the design of both British and Irish country house landscapes in the 18th century, when the pictures were bought by Grand Tourists and brought back home where parklands and demesnes were laid out to look like them. Sometimes, to enhance the view, they even incorporated artificial ruins as was the case in a number of properties around the country. At Belvedere, County Westmeath, for example, the ‘Jealous Wall’ was constructed. Some 180 feet long, this theatrical sham ruin dates from c.1760 when commissioned by Robert Rochfort, first Earl of Belvedere. Seemingly, it was built in order to block the view south towards Tudenham Park, a house further along Lough Ennell which had been erected some years before by the earl’s younger brother, George Rochfort, with whom he had quarreled. The earl might simply have asked for a high wall, but instead opted for one that romantically looks like the remains of an ancient castle. At Heywood, County Laois – where the grounds were laid out by owner Frederick Trench installed a number of fake ruins in the 1770s, including what appear to be the remains of a ruined medieval church, incorporating a traceried window thought  to be 15th century and to have been brought from the former Dominican friary at Aghaboe, some twelve miles away. Towards the end of the 18th century, the demesne at Lawrencetown, County Galway was similarly enhanced by the addition of a number of follies, including a Gothick eyecatcher, intended to suggest the remains of an otherwise lost building. Back in County Westmeath, at Killua Sir Benjamin Chapman acquired some of the stonework from a medieval Franciscan friary at Multyfarnham and around 1800 used this material to create a charming ‘ruin’ visible from the garden front of the house. 

The Jealous Wall, Belvedere, County Westmeath

Heywood, County Laois

Lawrencetown, County Galway

Killua Castle, County Westmeath

Even without the addition of fake examples, Ireland has never been short of ruins. The observations of  German writer and geographer Johann Georg Kohl who visited Ireland in 1841 have been cited before. ‘Of all the countries in the world’, he wrote, ‘Ireland is the country for ruins. Here you have ruins of every period of history, from the time of the Phoenicians down to the present day…down to our own times each century has marked its progress by the ruins it has left. Nay, every decade, one might almost say, has set its sign upon Ireland, for in all directions you see a number of dilapidated buildings, ruins of yesterday’s erection.’ What this suggests is that the Irish have a particular affinity for decay and dilapidation, given that the stock of ruined buildings seen by Kohl has only further increased since his time, although too often these additions could not be described as picturesque or romantic. Last week, the Irish Times reported on two substantial 19th century houses in Phibsborough, Dublin which in 2009 were added to the city council’s list of derelict sites. A decade later, after the buildings had fallen into still worse condition, they were compulsorily purchased by the authority which then announced plans to restore them for use as social housing. Now, after a further seven years of decline, the council has announced that the cost of undertaking such a restoration would be excessive and that there were currently ‘no plans’ for the properties. Of all the countries in the world, Ireland retains its title as the country for ruins.

Ightermurragh Castle, County Cork

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Death of a Salesman



Until relatively recently, across Ireland every country town would have had an hotel. It was the place where local weddings and similar social gatherings might be held, as well serving as a venue for business meetings, gatherings of societies like the Rotary or Lions Clubs, and occasional clandestine encounters. But what helped to sustain these hotels on a day-to-day basis, what kept the bar humming in the evening, filled bedrooms at night and ensured breakfast would be served in the morning were members of a now-vanished breed: the commercial traveller. 





Commercial travellers, otherwise known as travelling salesmen, were once a common sight throughout the country. Almost incessantly on the road, they moved from one urban centre to another, seeking to persuade individuals or retail outlets to buy the products or services of the company they represented. Their numbers were sufficiently great for the Irish Commercial Travellers’ Federation to be founded in Cork in 1919; in the middle of the last century, this body was sufficiently important to have its own publication, The Traveller.
While there were a handful of products being offered for sale by women – the Avon Lady who sold cosmetics and the like – commercial travellers were overwhelmingly male, and the profession gained a reputation for being somewhat libidinous: all those men on their own with an hotel bedroom at their disposal. Timothy Lea’s saucy Confessions of a Travelling Salesman was published in 1973, and the same year saw the release of the rather lame film, Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman. However, the end was soon nigh for commercial travellers: tellingly, in 1981, the Irish Commercial Travellers’ Federation was absorbed into the Sales, Marketing & Administrative Union of Ireland. Various factors have been given for the decline and eventual disappearance of a once-widespread occupation. Improvements in communication and transportation made the traditional role of a travelling salesman who physically visited customers over long periods less necessary for mainstream businesses. More recently, computers, and the internet have created direct online ordering systems, thereby allowing retailers to view and order stock directly from manufacturers, and making the role of the commercial traveller redundant. In addition, the rise of large retail chains has led to a corresponding reduction in the number of independent outlets that once relied on travellers. All of which hastened the demise of the travelling salesman. 





A recent visit to two towns less than six miles apart, one on either side of the border, both of which have hotels which were once thriving but which are now empty and in poor condition. In Clones, County Monaghan, the former Lennard Arms which stands in a prominent position at the junction of MacCurtain and Analore Streets and with a bold double canted bay fronted façade facing The Diamond, dates back to 1860. According to the National Built Heritage Service, the building ‘has been an institution in Clones since it commenced trading and endures as an important landmark in the town.’ That was written in 2011, and since then the hotel has ceased trading and fallen into its present sad state. Meanwhile, over in Newtownbutler the handsome Lanesborough Arms Hotel on Main Street first opened for business in 1820 and serves as testament to the prosperity of the town at the time. Of five bays and three storeys with a free-standing Tuscan porch, it closed for business in 2004 (the interior of the adjacent pub was removed and reinstalled in the Ulster American Folk Park, County Tyrone). A fire believed to have been started deliberately caused major damage to the building in 2016 and its condition has only grown worse since then.
The Lennard and Lanesborough Arms Hotels were both the kind of premises which have once provided hospitality to commercial travellers, and one wonders whether the disappearance of this formerly reliable class of guest was a factor in their closure. Each town suffers from the blight of dereliction (see top pictures for Clones and bottom ones for Newtownbutler), providing further evidence that once-thriving urban centres in all parts of Ireland have experienced serious decline across recent decades. With the loss of their clientele, do these once-thriving hotels have a future? In Clones, plans have been announced by the local authority to renovate the Lennard Arms as a heritage centre. Alas, no such opportunities in Newtownbutler for the Lanesborough Arms which, together with many of its neighbours along Main Street, continues to stand empty and neglected.



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Pathetic Residue




A gate lodge, almost all that remains of Ballywilliam, a former estate in County Limerick owned by the Maunsell family from the mid-18th century onwards. The main house here has long gone but this pathetic residue serves as a memory of what was once here. In his guide to the lodges of Munster, J.A.K. Dean ascribes the building’s design to Charles Frederick Anderson, and suggests a date after 1824 when Ballywilliam was inherited by George Meares Maunsell. A wonderful example of neo-classical design, the building has a pedimented breakfront supported by Doric columns, all in crisp cut limestone. Flanked by a curtain wall, pedimented projections extend the single-storey lodge to accommodate three rooms, that in the centre having a brick-vaulted ceiling, the floor below now covered in detritus.




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Shocking Deterioration




The pictures above show a terrace of former almshouses in Rockcorry, County Monaghan in August 2013. The pictures below show the same terrace in August 2025: the deterioration in their condition over the past 12 years is shocking. A stone plaque on the pediment of the two end houses advises that the terrace was ‘built by Jos. Griffiths for destitute widows A.D. 1847.’ Of two storeys and three bays, there are four such houses, sturdily constructed of stone with brick trim around the doors and windows. They are mentioned several times in a document commissioned by the local authority which appeared two years ago, Rockcorry Vision Plan 2030, with references made to ‘support community and private development of vacant and derelict residential properties for adaptation and re-use as new homes’ or the possibility of them being converted to tourist accommodation. Meanwhile, they continue to deteriorate…




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