Tag Archives: Irish Town

Yes, Vicar



Located opposite St Patrick’s Cathedral, Vicars’ Hill in Armagh owes its origins to Primate Hugh Boulter who in 1724 commissioned the construction of four houses here (now Nos. 1-4) to provide accommodation for clergymen’s widows, endowing this with a fund worth £50 per annum. These buildings are easily identified by their  handsome Gibbsian limestone doorcases. The rest of the terrace dates from half a century later when Primate Richard Robinson, as one of his projects within the city, commissioned a further seven houses, one of which (No.5) initially served as the Diocesan Registry Office but is now a museum while another of the buildings was erected as a Music Hall where boys who sang in the cathedral choir would train and sleep in rooms above.


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A Model Village


‘What immediately strikes the stranger is the substantial and comfortable appearance of the mill and its surroundings. At Bessbrook each house consists of from three to five rooms, according to the size of the family occupying it. Every arrangement necessary to promote cleanliness and health is resorted to. As you pass up, some of the first buildings you come to are the schoolrooms, which are for girls and boys, and for lads in the evening who are engaged during the day. The infant-school attached is the most interesting feature; but you will be pleased with the clean appearance of the boys and girls—with their intelligence and readiness to learn. The staff of masters and mistresses employed is evidently superior…Every householder has to send his children there, or whether he sends them or not he is charged a penny for the schooling of each child. £100 is subscribed annually, I believe, by the mills, and there is, besides, a Government grant. The playground attached to the school is an extensive one, and the view from it very fine.
A few doors further on, and we come to the Dispensary. There are ills to which all flesh is heir, and to remove which the services of a medical man are required…All here are expected to subscribe to a medical club, and the Firm supplement the subscription with a handsome one of their own. Thus a doctor is secured, who comes to his Dispensary on certain days of the week, and who also, of course, visits the serious cases in their own homes.
Further on, we come to a building which we ascertain to be the Temperance Hotel. This is the club and newsroom of the place. In the winter-time it is highly popular. Many Irish papers and a few English ones are taken in, and, I may add, most diligently perused. Here also are Punch and Zozimus, or the Dublin Punch. There also chess and draughts are played, and smoking is permitted. Boys are here indulging in games, while the advanced politician has his favourite organ—Conservative or Liberal; and those who care for neither, discuss matters connected with the neighbourhood, and the state of affairs at home.’
Extract from Bessbrook and its Linen Mills by J. Ewing Ritchie (London, 1876)





As seen today, Bessbrook, County Armagh dates from the mid-19th century when it was developed as a model village by the Quaker businessman John Grubb Richardson. From the second quarter of the 17th century to the end of the 19th century, the land on which the village stands was owned by the Caulfeilds, later Earls of Charlemont. Taking advantage of the river Camlough, a linen mill with bleaching green was established here in 1760 by the Pollock family, and in 1802 this business passed into the hands of Joseph Nicholson; the village’s name derives from that of his wife Elizabeth, or Bess. Following a fire in the scutching mill in 1839, the complex went into decline before being acquired by Richardson who had previously worked in his family’s successful family linen export company, JN Richardson Sons and Owden. It was Richardson who transformed the existing settlement into a model village for the workers in his linen mill which lay a short distance to the south and came to employ around 2,000 workers. A precursor of the better-known Bournville established by another Quaker family, the Cadburys, near Birmingham in England, by the end of the 19th century Bessbrook accommodated some 3,000 persons in 700 houses, many of them living in two-storey houses of rubble granite with red brick dressings. Two large squares – Charlemont Square and College Square – were linked by Fountain Street with a number of other streets running off this. All major Christian denominations, Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian, were provided with plots on which to construct a place of worship and as a Quaker Richardson provided a meeting house for members of his faith. As was noted by J. Ewing Ritchie in 1876, Richardson established a school for boys and girls, and built houses for its teachers, along with providing very many other facilities for the town’s residents: a dispensary, savings bank, orphanage, convalescent home, allotment gardens, gas lighting and hydro-electric tramway.He paid for a large building, called the Institute but known as the Town Hall, where meetings and recreational activities could be held. And, as also noted by Ritchie, he built an hotel where no alcohol was served. Richardson’s principles were based on the ‘Three P’s’: that there should be no public houses, no pawn shops and, as a result, no need for police. His son, James Nicholson Richardson wrote ‘From far-famed model Bessbrook/Where Bacchus is unknown/Where lack of public-houses/Has starved him off his throne/(Police, pawn-shop, nor publican,/Come nigh this realm of ease/The envious call it in their wrath/“The city of three P’s”)’. Many people were deeply impressed with Richardson’s philanthropic enterprise, but not everyone delighted in the place. After visiting it in 1879, George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘Bessbrook is a model village where the inhabitants never swear or get drunk and look as if they would like very much to do both.’ 





The decline of linen production from the middle of the last century onwards eventually led to the closure of the Richardson’s mill at Bessbrook in 1970. Around the same time, owing to the onset of the Troubles, the British Army needed a substantial base in South Armagh and therefore requisitioned the buildings, which were converted into a major military base. For a period thereafter, seemingly the former mill became the busiest heliport in Europe, with army helicopters taking off and landing low over Bessbrook every few minutes. Inevitably, the consequent security issues had consequences for the village which suffered economic decline. The army finally left in June 2007, and in recent years work has been undertaken to restore the centre of historic Bessbrook, although more still needs to be done (the former Temperance Hotel, on the corner of Fountain Street and Charlemont Square, for example, sits empty and disconsolate). As for the vast old mill complex, since the departure of the British army, this site has sat largely empty. However, in the autumn of 2022 plans were announced by Farlstone Construction, a company based elsewhere in County Armagh, for a £60 million redevelopment of this area, with the buildings being converted into apartments, offices and retail units. Whether this scheme comes to fruition remains to be seen. 

Pretty Vacant



On the main street of Shinrone, County Offaly, what should be a pretty family home but is now a vacant and much vandalised property. Likely dating from the 19th century when the village was more prosperous, the building’s interior shows evidence that this was once a fine residence.Inside the hall and facing the entrance, the wall is divided in three by slender arches, the space to the left containing a staircase, that to the right a passageway leading to the rear of the house, while the centre one takes the form of a niche. Reception rooms to the left and right of the hall show further evidence of former glory, all now abandoned and in decay.



The State of the Place



A recent post here about the neglect of historic buildings in Drogheda, County Louth attracted quite a lot of comment (see: Where The Streets Have No Shame « The Irish Aesthete) but its miserable condition is by no means unique. Everywhere one travels in Ireland, the same circumstances prevail, the core of cities, towns and villages suffering the same shameful neglect, buildings left boarded up (in the midst of a universally acknowledged housing shortage), sites covered in rubbish and graffiti, potential homes and businesses allowed to fall into ruin. This is Kilcock, County Kildare – but it could be anywhere because it represents everywhere. 

A Stroll along the Mall



Today the word ‘mall’ is usually applied to shopping centres with pretensions to grandeur, but historically malls were outdoor urban spaces in which the local population would stroll and socialise. No doubt originally The Mall in Wicklow town was intended to perform just such a function. Situated on ground steeply rising above the point where the Vartry river flows into the Irish Sea ,and therefore overlooking the harbour, The Mall is separated from Main Street immediately below by a retaining wall built of local granite and dating from c.1875. A double flight of steps links the two areas and to go from one to the other pedestrians pass under a wrought-iron arch centred on a glazed lantern. There ends whatever charm The Mall has today, since much of it is now a muddle of traffic congestion and neglected buildings, not least the former Bayview Hotel which occupies a particularly prominent spot. Originally constructed as a private residence around 1810 and called Bellevue, the property became a library in 1925 and later an hotel. Before the economic recession, there had been plans that it form part of a shopping centre complex but this never happened and it has been in decline since then. A year ago, the building, along with its neighbours, was sold for €903,000. One must hope the new owners have plans to improve the prospects not just of this site but the entire area. A stroll along The Mall ought to be a pleasure.


A Tale of Two Villages II



Kilbeggan, County Westmeath is barely five miles west of Tyrellspass, but the two places couldn’t be more different in character. Both have a crescent but that in Kilbeggan occupies one portion of a bleak traffic roundabout and has suffered badly from neglect and mistreatment. The building dates from c.1830 when constructed in the then-popular Tudor-Gothic style as an hotel, indicating the prosperity of the period and the amount of traffic then passing through the village. The gables on the left-hand portion have been removed, as have the cut-limestone hooded doorcases, replaced by a brutish cement-rendered opening that makes nonsense of the composition. Alas, elsewhere things don’t get much better, with many buildings standing empty and neglected. Typical in this respect is the former Bank of Ireland, dating from c.1890, which closed early in the present century and presents a forlorn face on Market Square.


A Tale of Two Villages I



In Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath the Crescent looks as though it could provide the setting for a novel by the likes of Mrs Gaskell. This part of the village was mostly laid out during the second decade of the 19th century, thanks to the endeavours of Jane, second Countess of Belvedere, whose elderly husband died in 1814, and to whom she erected a monument inside the church of St Sinian (although just a year later she married again). Around the open green are a number of domestic residences as well as a former single storey schoolhouse and a two-storey former courthouse. All are well maintained, although some of the fenestration shows evidence of the insidious uPVC virus (when will local authorities take steps to halt the spread of this blight across our architectural heritage?). On the outskirts of the village is a cluster of buildings constructed in the early 1840s as a girl’s orphanage thanks to a bequest left by the countess on her death the previous decade. In the Tudor-Gothic style, these were restored by the county council some years ago and now serve as housing scheme.


Scant Evidence


The bungalow-strewn village of Stratford on Slaney, County Wicklow looks as though it could be a modern suburb almost anywhere. However a handful of houses indicate the place has an older pedigree. The name derives from founder Edward Stratford, second Earl of Aldborough whose architectural ambitions have been discussed here before (see Splendours and Follies, September 30th 2013, A Thundering Disgrace, January 13th 2014 and A Thundering Disgrace No More?, February 27th 2017). He developed the village during the last quarter of the 18th century, intending it to be a centre for the textile industry, specifically cotton and printing works. At its height in the 1830s, Stratford on Slaney contained 104 houses (and thirteen public houses) with a population of 2,833 people, 1,00o of them employed in the fabric factory. Lord Aldborough built places of worship for Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians, a dispensary and several shops. The famine and its attendant woes in the following decade put an end to the business, and so to Stratford where the factory closed and people moved away: in the census of 2016, the village had a population of just 241 persons. These few houses, dating from c.1840 are all that remain of Lord Aldborough’s ambitions.

Signs of Affluence


In 1837 Samuel Lewis described Cloghan, County Offaly as a ‘village and post-town’ containing 84 dwellings and 460 inhabitants. Evidently some of the latter enjoyed prosperity because the dwellings they occupied were substantial, not least one on Hill Street which has this handsome doorcase. The five-bay property is believed to date from around 1820, a time when the country experienced greater affluence than would be the case just a couple of decades later, and which led to something of a building boom. Another house on nearby Castle Street was constructed during the same period and features a similar, albeit slightly plainer, doorcase.

Getting It Right


As its name indicates, the little coastal village of Castletownshend, County Cork grew up around a castle occupied from c.1665 onwards by Richard Townsend, and still in the ownership of his descendants. Castletownshend offers an example of how a small urban settlement can retain its character and charm, and thereby attract visitors who during the summer months throng the place. Located on a small side-street rather grandly called The Mall, the mid-18th century house above has retained much of its original appearance, as is the case for the majority of other properties in the village. A number have benefitted from more recent sympathetic owners such as the house below: dating from the 1880s, prior to independence it was occupied by the Royal Irish Constabulary. Castletownshend is a model of how to get it right.