Historic Buildings of County Cavan

Historic Buildings of County Cavan

Republic of Ireland

See Historic Buildings of Britain and Ireland - Main Page

Image right - Lismore Castle

If you have information about any of the Buildings mentioned below please share it here. If you have ancestors linked to any of the places please add them to the project.

The object of this project is to provide information about historic buildings in County Cavan, with links to sub-projects for specific buildings as appropriate. GENi profiles of people associated with those establishments can be linked to this project and/or to individual projects where they have been set up.

Castles, Baronial and Historic houses

... in alphabetical order

Including Castles, Abbeys, Manor Houses, Mansions, Stately Homes, Country houses, Estate houses, Courts, Halls, Parks and other listed buildings of historic interest

Full sizes of the thumbnail images can be seen in the Gallery attached to the project or by clicking the thumbnail image. TIP - Use ctrl+the link to open the image in a separate tab, or use "back" to return to this project page) Sources for the images can be found in the image details as seen in the gallery.

Names with Bold links are to Geni profiles or projects. Other links take you to external biographical web pages. Please copy and paste the bullet used - ● - instead of * when adding items to the list.

A

● Annaghlee Cootehill - mid-18th century red-brick house attributed to Richard Castle. Michael Murphy lived there in 1814. Destroyed.

● Ashfield Lodge Cootehill - late-Georgian house sold after the death of Lt.Col M L S Clements in 1952 and subsequently demolished.

● Castle Aubigny Grant given to Esme Stuart, Lord Aubigny.

B

● Castle Bagshaw - in 1627 Sir Edward Bagshawe received a grant of lands, afterwards known as the manor of Castle Bagshaw. It was later owned by William Burroughs and later by Brockhill Perrot.

● Bailieborough Castle a.k.a. Castle House, Lisgar House or "The Castle" , house and Bawn - "... a vaulted castle, with a bawn 90 feet square, and two flanking towers". A grant was given to William Baille (died c. 1648), a native of Ayrshire, Scotland in 1610. He built Bailieborough Castle close to what was to become the town of Bailieborough and settled a number of Scottish families in the area. William had two sons William and Robert. His eldest son, William Bailie, became Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh and inherited his father's estate. He died in 1664 and his only daughter Jane was his heir. She married James Hamilton, father of Henry Hamilton MP for Cavan, who was killed in the Siege of Limerick. He was succeeded by his son, also James Hamilton, who sold the property in 1724 to Major Charles Stewart - and left the area. Major Charles Stewart died in 1740, leaving his estate to his son William Stewart, High Sheriff of Cavan 1749, who in turn was followed by his son Charles, MP for Cavan 1783-1793. This Charles was killed in an accident in 1795, when Thomas Charles Stewart Corry inherited the house. He sold it in 1814 to Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, of Bailieborough Castle, father of Sir John Young, 2nd Baronet (1807-1876). Sir Stanley Cochrane bought the house and later sold it to his nephew, the late Mr. W.L.B. Cochrane, a Bailieborough solicitor. The bulk of the land was sold in 1910 to the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands. In 1915 the house and the remaining 100 acres of land were sold to a religious order, the Marist Brothers of Athlone. It was burnt down in 1918 and demolished shortly afterwards - no remains.

○ WIKI - Bailieborough Castle
○ William Bailie

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● Ballyconnell Castle built by Captain Culme and Walter Talbot in the reign of James 1st.

● Ballyhaise House As part of James I’s plantation of Ulster, in 1609 John Taylor of Cambridge received a grant of 1,500 acres in an area of County Cavan called Aghieduff. Here he established the town of Ballyhaise and, according to a mid-19th century report, ‘built a strong Bawn of lime and stone for his own residence, on the site of the present castle, which, from it position, commanded the ford over the river.’ John Taylor married Ann the daughter and heiress of Henry Brockhill of Allington, Kent - their elder son was Brockhill Taylor who served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Cavan in the 1630s. On his death he left no son but two daughters one of whom, Mary inherited the Cavan estate. She married Thomas Newburgh - their second son, Colonel Brockhill Newburgh, (c.1659 - 1741) was the next owner of Ballyhaise since his elder brother died in 1701 without heirs. During the Williamite Wars, Colonel Newburgh had raised a company of soldiers and participated in several battles in support of what would prove to be the winning side. In 1704 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cavan and served as an M.P. from 1715 to 1727, as well as acting as chairman of the local linen board. Ballyhaise remained in the possession of the Newburgh family until around 1800 when it was sold to William Humphreys, a Dublin merchant who had made his fortune in the wood trade. In 1905 the state bought the property and has run it as an agricultural college every since. See The Irish Aesthete

● Bellamont House completed in 1730 by Judge Thomas Coote and designed by the architect Edward Lovett Pearce. In 1800 it passed to an illegitimate son of Earl Charles Coote, who is reported to have fathered up to 18 children by five women. Charles, variously described as a tyrant, a madman, and a person of "disgusting pomposity", was tried in 1764 for murdering a man during the 'Oakboy' rebellion which he helped to repress brutally. He got off and is immortalised in a camp portrait by Joshua Reynolds in the National Gallery. The estate was gambled away by descendant John Coote in 1874 and bought by the Dorman-Smiths, whose most famous member, Eric 'Chink' Dorman-Smith, served in the British army in both world wars before being sacked in 1942. He was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway, went home to Bellamont, changed his name to O'Gowan and turned republican, allowing the IRA to use the estate as a training ground, and advised its executive during the Border Campaign. He died in 1969. The most recent owner, John Coote was brought up on a sheep station in the Australian outback, his family having emigrated in the early 1900s. Coote died suddenly in 2012, and the house is now for sale (March 2015).

● Brogan's Castle

C

● Cabra Castle believed to have belonged to the O'Reilly Family until it was confiscated in the mid 17th century by Cromwell's orders and given to Colonel Thomas Cooch. He was the first owner of Cabra Estate, who married Elizabeth Mervyn, sister of Audley Mervyn (Speaker of the Irish House of Commons). Their only daughter and heiress, was Elizabeth. When she was widowed in 1685 she married Joseph Pratt, who lived at Jaradice, Co. Meath, a property which he received when he migrated from Leicestershire to Ireland in 1641. This marriage (Joseph Pratt's second) took place in 1686 and a son, Mervyn Pratt, was born in 1687. Colonel T. Cooch was still the owner of Cabra but in 1695, he made a will leaving all his property to said Mervyn Pratt, his grandson,. When the Colonel died in 1699 the Cabra property came into the possession of the Pratt Family. Mervyn Pratt was then only twelve years old. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin and married Elizabeth Coote, daughter of Sir T. Coote, Judge, and lived at Cabra near the Wishing Well.

○ See WIKI Cabra Castle

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● Castle Cavan no remains - Charter granted to Walter Bradie; erected by Garrett Fleming

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(1801-85). Appointed to the incumbency of Drung Parish by his father, George de la Poer Beresford (1765-1841), Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, he found the existing glebe house to be unfit for habitation. Corravahan House, or Coravahn as it was known at the time, was owned by the Beresford family and passed to the Reverend Charles Leslie (1810-70) in 1854 on his appointment to the parish. Following the death of Leslie, just months into his position as Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh, the property was retained by his family for two further generations while a new house, styled "Drung Vicarage", was erected for the parish circa 1872. The last Leslies to occupy the house were two sisters, Joan and Madge, who jointly inherited from their uncle in 1930: no male heirs had survived the Great War. They "modernised" the house, installing central heating, electric lighting and improving sanitation, but the main fabric of the house remained unaltered. Following their deaths in 1972, the house stood largely unoccupied until its most recent sale in 2003. Reference - Buildings of Ireland