Teach Samhrain

Detached four-bay single-storey lobby entry thatched house with dormer attic, extant 1840, on a rectangular plan off-centred on single-bay single-storey gabled windbreak. Vacant, 1901. Occupied, 1911. Renovated, 1996. Repaired, 2004, to accommodate continued occasional use. Replacement hipped water reed thatch roof on oat thatch base with chicken wire-covered exposed hazel lattice stretchers to raised ridge having exposed scallops, cement rendered off-central chimney stack having stepped capping supporting terracotta pots, and blind stretchers to eaves having blind scallops. Replacement rendered battered walls; rendered surface finish to rear (west) elevation centred on rendered battered buttress. Segmental-headed off-central door opening below "oeil-de-boeuf" with concealed dressings framing replacement glazed timber panelled door having fanlight. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement timber casement windows replacing six-over-six (south) or two-over-two (north) timber sash windows having part exposed sash boxes. Set back from road in landscaped grounds with limewashed cylindrical piers to perimeter having conical capping.

A house identified as an integral component of the vernacular heritage of south County Wexford by such attributes as the rectilinear lobby entry plan form off-centred on a characteristic windbreak; the construction in unrefined local materials displaying a pronounced battered silhouette with sections of "daub" or mud suggested not only by a stabilising buttress but also by an entry in the "House and Buildings Return" Form of the National Census (NA 1901; NA 1911); the disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing; and the high pitched roof originally showing an oat thatch finish: however, a comprehensive renovation programme involving the substitution of much of the original fabric has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a house making a picturesque visual statement in a sylvan street scene.