Cooleagh House — Cooleagh (graystown Par.)

In grassland in upland area with good views in all directions. In the Civil Survey (1654-6) Florence Fennell and Walter Hackett were listed as proprietors in 1640 and the castle is described as a 'little stumpe of a castle with 3 or 4 cabbins' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 119). In the Ormond Deeds, Richard Hacket of Coulleghe is named as juror in 1551 (COD V, 61). It is now a multiperiod house which has been extended on its S side at least twice since the construction of the tower house. Originally there was a small rectangular tower house (ext. dims. 4.8m N-S x 4.6m E-W; wall T 0.9m) which was added to on the S side, possibly in the 17th century, for a distance of approx. 4m and then again to the S for a distance of 10m to form the present house, possibly in the late 18th/early 19th century. The tower house survives two storeys high and has a base-batter and is rendered with concrete pebble dash. Modern PVC windows have been inserted into the W façade of Cooleagh House. Cooleagh House itself, on the W façade, consists of a two-storey 4-bay single-pile farmhouse of 18th/19th century appearance and protrudes on the W face 0.3m beyond the W face of the tower house. The arrangement of windows is assymetrical and the arrangement of chimney stacks also suggests that the house was built in several phases. To the rear on the E façade one can see all the additions in the form of three distinct rooflines which show that the house was extended twice from the S face of the tower house, from the 17th to the 19th century. A well-preserved 18th/19th-century farmyard lies to the E of Cooleagh House. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011