Goldsmith's Residence

Fragmentary remains of a five or six-bay two-storey single-pile rectory, built c.1715. Roof now missing and only three-bays to southeast survive extant. Constructed of rubble limestone with evidence of early lime rendering over. Cut stone quoins to southeast corner at first floor level. Square-headed window openings and a round-headed doorcase with cut limestone surround to centre, fittings now gone. Loop hole openings to rear elevation (south). Set back from road in own grounds.

A small ruinous structure now of minor architectural significance but of considerable historical interest as Oliver Goldsmith's (c.1728- c.1774) residence between 1730 and c.1747 at a time when his father, Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was rector at nearby Kilkenny West. Goldsmith considered Lissoy to be the 'only home he ever knew'. For much of his life Goldsmith looked with nostalgia towards his childhood in Lissoy and the area around Lissoy later became the “Sweet Auburn” and 'The Deserted Village' in his poetry and writings. The back wall and the southeast elevation of this unassuming ruin look like they may have been rebuilt, possibly during the first half of the nineteenth century, a period when Goldsmith's popularity was at its zenith.