archaeological & built heritage assessment - The Heritage Council

Though one thousand started with him only thirty five then remained, sixteen armed men, eighteen non
combatants and one woman, the wife of the chief’s uncle, Dermot O’Sullivan. Peter Somerville recounts in his
book From Bantry Bay to Leitrim how he traced the O’Sullivan Beare route in the 1970s from a diary kept
by the twelve year old Philip O’Sullivan, who survived the march. Broadcaster Donncha O’Dulaing
completed the same long journey from Kerry in January 1987 and his effort is also commemorated. There
are no buildings listed as protected structures in the County Development Plan for Leitrim village to date.
Carrick-on-Shannon
Originally a market and post-town (formerly a parliamentary borough), its location on the banks of the
river Shannon was an important crossing point throughout history. It was incorporated by James I, in
1613, under the title of ‘The Provost, Free Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of
Carrigdrumruske’ (Lewis, 1837). In 1684 the tolls of the then extant bridge were granted to the local
landlord Sir George St George, and in return he contracted to keep it in repair.
A new bridge with seventeen arches was erected in 1718 and the Shannon Commissioners replaced it by
the present bridge in the 1840s. Up to this time the navigation works had not been extended north of the
town however there appears to have been some trade in small boats upstream to Cootehall on the Boyle
River (Delaney 2000).
There are several interesting buildings located within the town. In the late twentieth century an old jail
complex was removed to make way for a marina, however an eighteenth century court house remains. St
Mary’s Catholic Church was designed by William Hague in 1879 and completed 50 years later by his pupil
T.F. McNamara, who added a tower and installed stained glass over the high altar (Williams 1994). The
original high altar was dismantled in 1979, parts of it distributed to a new tabernacle in the chapel on the
right and to a new baptismal font in the chapel on the left (ibid.). The construction of Costello Chapel, a
small stone roofed oratory, was commissioned by a local shop keeper, Edward Costello, who lost his wife
in 1877. Originally a Methodist chapel, it was completed in 1879 although no architect is recorded.
Hatley Manor, a town palazzo is entered by a forecourt off the main street, and was built by a branch of
the St George family in the 1830s. It is designed in the Italianate manner however the garden front was
altered to a Gothic style during construction – the windows given hooded mouldings, the parapet
castellated, and the central staircase extended into a battlemented tower and lit by a tall Gothic window
off the half landing (ibid.). There is a mausoleum in the garden built in 1865 and entered by a Doric porch.
There are some twenty-six structures/buildings in total that are listed for protection in Carrick-on-
Shannon as referenced in both the Leitrim and Roscommon County Development Plans.
Cootehall
Cootehall is located on the north-eastern shores of Oakport Lough which forms part of the Boyle river
and remains as a small village today. The Coote family had been granted extensive lands in this area in the
seventeenth century and Sir Charles Coote, and later his son, are recorded as having being harsh
landlords. Cootehall Castle, near the bridge, was originally a large quadrilateral enclosure with high walls
and towers at each corner. It was attacked and burned by insurgents in 1798. Some remains of the towers
are extant together with some of the castle buildings which were later converted into a farmhouse. There
is a pedimented triple arch stone entrance gate to the house dating to c. 1775. An eight-arch bridge that
crossed the river at this point was replaced by the Shannon Commissioners in the 1840s by a triple arch
stone bridge (Delaney 2000). Cootehall has also a literary connection. It was here that the Irish novelist
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