Survey Data
Reg No
20907015
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
Gate lodge
Date
1845 - 1855
Coordinates
130823, 72334
Date Recorded
08/07/2010
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached two-bay (two-bay deep) single-storey gate lodge, c.1850, on a square plan. Now disused. Pyramidal slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, rendered central chimney stack on rendered base having stringcourse below stepped capping supporting yellow terracotta octagonal pot, and cast-iron rainwater goods on slightly overhanging eaves. Rendered walls on rendered plinth with rendered monolithic pilasters including rendered monolithic pilasters to corners supporting frieze. Square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement with sills, timber mullions, and moulded rendered surrounds with hood mouldings framing timber casement windows having Y-traceried square glazing bars. Set back from line of road at entrance to grounds of Raleigh House with rendered piers to perimeter having pyramidal capping supporting wrought iron double gates.
Appraisal
A gate lodge making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene at the entrance on to the grounds of the Raleigh House estate with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact square plan form; the monolithic pilasters; the neo-Tudor bipartite glazing patterns; and the pyramidal roof. The gate lodge, occupied (1853) by John Murphy and valued at £1 4s. 0d. (Primary Valuation of Ireland), forms part of a substantially intact estate which includes an eighteenth-century farmhouse, a farmyard complex, a walled garden and a neo-Gothic eye-catcher (see 20907016). Raleigh House was the home of Art Ó Laoghaire (d. 1773), a captain in the Hungarian Hussars Regiment of the army of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa of Austrian, who became embroiled in a feud with Abraham Morris (d. 1775) of Hanover Hall [SMR CO060-102----]. The Protestant Morris demanded that Catholic Ó Laoghaire sell him a horse he brought back to County Cork from his service in the Austro-Hungarian army – the Penal Laws stated that no Catholic might own a horse worth more than £5. Ó Laoghaire refused, challenged Morris to a duel, which Morris declined. Morris used his position as a magistrate to have Ó Laoghaire declared an outlaw, one who could be legally shot on sight, and led a contingent to Carriganimmy where Ó Laoghaire was killed on the 4th May 1773. Ó Laoghaire's widow, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (d. c.1800), composed the long poem "Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire" mourning his death and calling for revenge: Morris was shot on the 7th July 1773 but only succumbed to his wounds in September 1775.