Survey Data
Reg No
41400627
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Original Use
Orange Hall
Date
1885 - 1895
Coordinates
265932, 339850
Date Recorded
01/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey Orange hall, dated 1890, having projecting porch to front (east) elevation. Now disused. Pitched slate roof with polychrome brick chimneystacks to gables, and terracotta ridge tiles. Decorative timber bargeboards and pointed timber finial to porch. Roughcast rendered walls, with painted inscribed plaque 'Corragh Orange Hall / 1890' in Gaelic script to front of porch. Square-headed window openings, now boarded up. Square-headed door opening to north of porch with timber battened door.
Appraisal
The simple façade of this Orange hall is enlivened by subtle timber detailing, such as bargeboards and finial, and polychrome brick chimneystacks which are ubiquitous in this area. Although it is no longer in use it retains a sense of its social significance. Orange halls served an important social function throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the meeting places of the Orange Order, a Protestant religious/political society, founded in 1795. Such buildings became a common feature in town and countryside, often functioning as community halls for the Protestant community, and used for social, political and cultural functions. The use of Gaelic script for the inscription is highly unusual. Prominently sited at a rural crossroads, it is reflective of the historical social and political activity in County Monaghan.