House - 17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

In 1635 Castlecomer was granted to Christopher Wandesforde, who established a town there and in 1638 built Castlecomer House. The house is depicted on the Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Fassadining, County Kilkenny (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). Though, according to Nolan (1979, 78, 112), the family did not establish their principal residence here until c. 1694.
During the 1798 rebellion the United Irishmen fought the Crown Forces in the ‘Battle of Comer’, as a result of which the town and the original Wandesforde residence was burnt (Ó Drisceoil 2018, 58). Following this, in c. 1802, Anne Countess of Ormonde and Ossory built a new house on the site of its predecessor (ibid.). By the 1960s the house had become vacant and it was almost completely demolished in 1975 (http://archiseek.com/2014/1802-castlecomer-house-co-kilkenny/, viewed 12 June 2017). In 1979 a two-storey house was built on part of the site (Farrelly et al. 1993, 128).

See attached:
KK005-081----_01 extract from Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Fassadining (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin)

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 18 January 2022

References

Farrelly, J., O'Reilly, B., and Loughran, A. 1993 Urban archaeological survey - county Kilkenny (2 vols.). Unpublished report commissioned by the Office of Public Works, Dublin.

Bence-Jones, M. 1988 A guide to Irish country houses. London

Nolan, W. 1979 Fassadinin: land settlement and society in south-east Ireland, 1600-1850. Dublin. The Ardagh Press.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2018 Excavation of a seventeenth century bastioned fort at High Street, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny. Old Kilkenny Review 70, 45-77.