House - 16th century

The National Monuments Service's description

Nos. 91-93 High Street, on the E side of the street, opposite Friary Street, presently the 'Paris Texas' public house and restaurant and 'Porter's Newsagent', incorporates the standing remains of the stone mansion house built in 1580 by Henry Shee and his wife Francis Crisp (Carrigan 1905, Vol. 3, 22, 70-82; Farrelly et al. 1993, 46). Henry Shee was mayor of Kilkenny in 1601 and 1611. The Civil Survey (1654-6) describes the property as, 'A Stone house slated (Length 64 [c. 19.5m]; breadth 22 [c. 6.7m]; rooms 18); A Stable slated the walls p[ar]te stone and p[ar]te Timber and lathes (Length 17 [c. 5m]; breadth 18 [c. 5.5m]; rooms 2); A house of Office boarded ye walls wattles & clay (Length 8 [c. 2.4m]; breadth 6 [c. 1.8m])' and lists Richard Shee as the occupier of the house (Simington 1942, 508).
The house extended from the High Street façade on the W to St. Mary's Lane, the E boundary of the precinct of St. Mary's parish church (KK019-026115-) and graveyard (KK019-026156-). The building, one of the earliest of the corpus of Renaissance-style townhouses that were built in Kilkenny in the later 16th/early 17th centuries, had survived largely intact, including its original timberwork, until c. 1928, at which time it was largely gutted internally for a Woolworths department store (Phelan 1954, 21-22). Although the internal floors and fixtures and fittings were removed at this time, much of the original envelope of the house remains upstanding, including a fine cut-stone fireplace and chimney breast in the N gable, the S gable and part of the front W façade, with two small square-headed windows with hood-mouldings on a gable fronting the High Street (O'Donovan et al. 2005, 15-22). An original string course is present on the rear elevation and partially intact on the front elevation. The basement level of the house is also largely intact. Pre c. 1928 photographs indicate the building originally had two gables fronting onto High Street, only one of which is still in situ. The photographs also show an octagonal chimney (removed c. 1949) and pointed gables on the S elevation of the house. An armorial plaque (KK019-026081-) on the street façade bears the arms of Henry Shee and his wife, Frances Crisp and is said to have had a date of 1580, this portion of the stone has been broken off. Archaeological test-excavations within the rear SW portion of the site by Sinéad Phelan uncovered a portion of what may be the boundary wall between the rear of the house and the cemetery (KK019-026156) of nearby St. Mary's church (Phelan 2006). Human skeletal burials, part of the medieval graveyard of St. Mary's, were identified to the E of the wall (ibid.). Elsewhere, much of the area had been scarped to the level of the glacial boulder clay.

See attached photograph:
KK019-026062-_01 Google Earth street view, imagery date September 2019
KK019-026062-_02 Illustration of Henry Shee house in 1850 from Carrigan 1905, vol. 3, 22

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 22 March 2022

References

Phelan, S. 2006 Paris Texas, St. Mary's Lane/91–93 High Street, Kilkenny: medieval graveyard 03E1856. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2003: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 274, no. 1025. Dublin. Wordwell.

Phelan, W.J. 1954 High Street (continued): High Street from the Tholsel to the Parade on the east side. Old Kilkenny Review 7, 20-24.

O’Donovan, E., Jordan, J. and Phelan, S. 2005 Archaeological and architectural assessment and impact statement Paris Texas St. Mary's Lane/91-93 High Street, Kilkenny. Excavation licence nos. 03E1856 and 05E0201. Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd. Unpublished report.

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.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1942 The Civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol VI: county of Waterford. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.