Survey Data
Reg No
13008019
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social
Previous Name
Longford Cavalry Barracks
Original Use
Outbuilding
Historical Use
Laundry
In Use As
Outbuilding
Date
1800 - 1840
Coordinates
213040, 275670
Date Recorded
08/09/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Range of three three-bay single-storey military buildings, formerly in use as cook house and laundry, built c. 1820, now in use as outbuildings. Two-bay single-storey outbuilding attached to the east end. Pitched natural slate roofs with red brick chimneystack and cast-iron rainwater goods. Louvered vents to roof of structure to the west end of range and dormer/vents openings, now blocked, to roof of central and eastern sections. Overhanging veranda type roof, supported on iron columns, to outbuilding at the east end. Dressed and tooled snecked limestone walls. Square-headed window openings with painted cut stone and red brick block-and-start surrounds, and painted stone sills. Six-over-six, three-over-six, and two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed entrance openings with red brick, painted stone and painted brick surrounds. Timber battened doors, with stone threshold. Ramp access. Situated within Sean Connolly Barracks, to the southwest of barrack complex, and to the north end of Longford Town centre.
Appraisal
This range of modest single-storey buildings originally housed the barrack cook house and laundry. The vents to the roof are indicative of the originally uses. The stepped profile of the front elevations, and the variety of roof and building forms, helps to create an appealing composition. The good quality cut stone block-and-start window surrounds to the structure to the east end add a more formal architectural character to this range of ancillary structures. These structures were probably built as part of a major phase of construction at the barracks between 1808 and 1843. These buildings forms part of a group of related structures within the Sean Connolly Barracks complex (13008016 - 20) that together represents an important element of the architectural heritage of the area and is of considerable social and historical importance to County Longford. Sean Connolly Barracks is named after Brigadier Sean Connolly, of the Longford Brigade, who was fatally wounded in action in1921 by British forces during the War of Independence.