Boyle Courthouse

Detached three-bay two-storey courthouse, built c.1830, with flanking recessed single-storey entrance bays. Hipped slated roof with rendered chimneystacks to rear. Tooled coursed cut stone façade. Giant-order pilasters to façade with string course, cornice and round-headed recessed blind doorways, end bays having fanlights. Memorial plaque to Count Plunkett to central bay. Marble plaque to north bay with bust in relief of 'An Piarsagh' (sic) (Patrick Pearse, leader of the 1916 Rising). Stone panels with shield devices above entrance doors with chains hung like garlands. Timber sash windows with stone sills to upper storey. Courthouse approached by a flight of limestone steps.

This refined court house is of social and historical significance to the town of Boyle. Set back in an open location allowing for a fuller appreciation of this finely-executed building, the court house, with its garlands of chains tells the sombre storey of the use that this public building had, and uses symbolism to portray the part it played in the Irish judicial system.