Coolalough House

Complex of single and two-storey outbuildings formerly serving Coolalough House (now a ruin), (re)built c.1800. Pitched natural slate roofs with raised cut stone verges. Rubble stone walls, originally roughcast rendered, with brick dressings to a number of the openings. Square-headed window openings with cut stone lintels and sills, fittings now gone. Complex surrounded by a rubble limestone boundary wall having rubble limestone gate piers (on square-plan) with cut stone coping over. Located to the west of the site of Coolalough House and to the east of Horseleap.

A well-built complex of rubble limestone outbuildings associated with Coolalough House, now in ruins. This substantial complex is in relatively good condition despite being out of use for a considerable period of time and this is testament to the skill of the original builders. It provides an interesting historical insight into the extensive resources required to run and maintain a large scale country estate in the nineteenth century in Ireland. Coolalough House and site has an interesting history. The estate was granted to the Handy Family in the mid-seventeenth century. Coolalough House was later a base for the Methodists in the area and Charles and John Wesley, the founders of the Methodists, visited the house on a number of occasions, Charles in 1748 and John Wesley on a number of occasions after 1751 when the house was in the ownership of a Samuel Handy (who apparently had a son in 1851 and named him Samuel Wesley Handy (1751-1829) after the Wesley Brothers). John Wesley preached to large congregations at Coolalough on a number of occasions. Wesley records in his letters in 1785 that the Handy Family had recently built a new property at Coolalough, apparently (re)named Bracca Castle, and it is likely that the outbuildings date to this time or shortly afterwards. Another Samuel Hardy is listed as the owner of Bracca Castle in 1837 (Lewis) and the property was still in the ownership of the Handy Family c.1860.