House - 17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

Chapelizod House, now ruinous, whose demesne, as depicted on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map, included all of Grovebeg townland as well as part of the neighbouring townlands of Haggard and Raheen to the N and W respectively. According to Phelan (1973, 25) an 18th-century memorial stone, ‘Still preserved in the old kitchen of Chapel Izod House is [the] date of its first building 1672 and the initials of its early founders. The K in the top part may refer to the Kevan lady who married Lionel Izod’. The memorial stone also gives the date '1748' with the inscription, 'Rebuilt by Wm Izod Esq' (ibid. 24).
A 19th-century photograph of the house shows a central five-bay block with projecting ground-floor porch, a half-dormer attic, hipped roof with chimneys at either end and a rear return. There is a ground-floor building with steeply pitched roof, possibly a ball-room, attached on the S side and a two-storey three-bay pitched-roof building to the N, with the end bay projecting forward with a gabled roof, the chimney is between the second and the end bay. The main block of the house is described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as having a basement and being, 'reduced to ruins following a prolonged period of unoccupancy, much of the stone work having been repurposed in the interim, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric’ (https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12402714/chapelizod-house-grovebeg-co-kilkenny).

See attached photographs:
KK027-078----_01 19th-century photograph of the house showing the front (W) elevation (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage)
KK027-078----_02 Front (W) elevation
KK027-078----_03 From Phelan 1973, 24, figure 6

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 19 April 2023

References

Phelan, M. 1973 Kilree. Old Kilkenny Review 25, 16-28.