Survey Data

Reg No

15502032


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Historical, Social


Original Use

House


In Use As

House


Date

1875 - 1880


Coordinates

304670, 122060


Date Recorded

05/07/2005


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached three-bay two-storey house, built 1877, on a rectangular plan. Renovated, 1951. Pitched fibre-cement slate roof on an L-shaped plan with clay or terracotta ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks having chamfered capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta octagonal pots, rooflight (north), and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Rendered, ruled and lined walls. Segmental-headed central door opening with threshold, and moulded rendered surround centred on portrait-detailed keystone framing replacement timber panelled door having fanlight. Square-headed flanking window openings with cut-granite sills, and moulded rendered lugged surrounds framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with cut-granite sills, and moulded rendered surrounds framing one-over-one timber sash windows. Street fronted on a corner site with concrete footpath to front.

Appraisal

A house representing an integral component of the domestic built heritage of Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one potentially repurposing an earlier house displaying a comparable footprint on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1840; published 1841), suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a restrained doorcase showing a simple fanlight; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. Having been reasonably well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the historic or original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a house given as the childhood home of Robert Brennan (1881-1964), author and journalist with "The Echo"; leader of the 1916 Rising in County Wexford; co-founder (1931) of "The Irish Press"; first Irish Free State Minister to the United States (appointed 1934); and Director of Radio Éireann (appointed 1947).