House — 16th/17th century in Mountrath (maryborough West By.)

A 17th century town (LA017-033) that was flounded during the first quarter of the seventeenth century by Sir Charles Coote which he settled with Protestant families. In its early years the town was a centre for the manufacture of linen and fustian, and an important centre of the Iron industry (Feehan 1983, 390). The Census of 1659 gives Mountrath a population of 223 families, 49 of which were English, the main landholders were Daniel Carroll, William Lockington, and Thomas Low. The town square is a trapezoidal shaped area, its centre was formerly occupied by an 18th century markethouse which also functioned as a courthouse and now has been replaced by a roundabout. Leading off to the south of the market square in Shannon Street. At its N end on the W side there is a two storey, probably 17th-century house with a massive chimney stack, crowned by diagonally placed flues, Internal features include running timber beams on both floors (Loeber 1995). This building was described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage in 2002 as a 'Terraced three-bay three-storey house, built c.1780, incorporating fabric of earlier building on site. Chimneystack with diagonally placed flues. Renovated, c.1985, with shopfront inserted to ground floor. Double-pitched roof with replacement fibre-cement tiles, roughcast chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods' (NIAH 2002-). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007