4 Glendesha Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Semi-detached two-storey, three-bay semi-detached former barrack building built c.1795 by the Commissioners of the Barracks and converted into a dwelling house to provide accommodation for a curate c.1820, with a dispensary providing free medical treatment in an outbuilding. In 1891 the building was sold to the Catholic Church and became the parochial house for St Mary’s, Mullaghbawn. Rectangular plan form having single-storey single-bay entrance porch to north-west with hipped roof, single-storey single-bay extension to north-east extending to rear and single-storey cantilevered flat-roof extension to south-east leading to two-storey split-level extension to south-east having hipped roof. Building is attached on south-west to HB16 16 021B.

Pitched fibre cement roof and ridge tiles, two red brick chimneystacks having profiled brick cornices, lead flashing and terracotta chimney pots. uPVC and aluminium rainwater goods. Painted roughcast render walling with smooth rendered eaves course, plinth and narrow margin corners.

Asymmetrical principal elevation to north-west having square-headed openings having granite cills, smooth raised margins. Two over two single-glazed timber sliding sash windows. Multi-paned stained-glass timber sliding sash window to porch. Leaded stained-glass fixed-pane window to north-east corner of principal elevation. Timber panelled door to north-east of entrance porch, bootscraper adjacent.

Date stone ‘1795’ to gabled north-east elevation (added after 1989 by current owner). Timber casement window.

Rear elevation to south-west having two half-dormers with leaded flat roof and dormer cheeks and timber casement windows. Three-over six timber sliding sash window to first floor to south-west side of rear elevation. Single-storey three-bay lean-to to south-east.

Flat roof extension has decorative metal crest to flat roof supported on bracketed eaves board. South-east elevation to extension has rendered piers with infill square-headed window openings with concrete sill. South-west elevation is four-bay with square-headed openings and timber casement windows and timber-framed glazed door which opens onto raised external courtyard area.
Two-storey split-level building has asbestos-tiled roof, replacement metal rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walling with raised smooth rendered eave course and smooth narrow margins. Square-headed openings with smooth rendered margins. Polycarbonate lean-to to south-east elevation. Rendered boundary party wall with No.6 (HB16 16 021B) extending from south-east rear elevation into gardens.

Free-standing garage to east, built c.1940 with pitched asbestos-tiled roof, replacement metal rainwater goods, lined and ruled rendered walling. Square-headed openings, fixed timber-pane windows, timber sheeted doors.

Principal north-west elevation has raised area paved with concrete flags extending the length of front elevation with modern replacement fencing and a wrought iron entrance gate.

Rear south-east elevation has concrete path and rendered retaining wall with concrete coping with mature gardens beyond which includes historic structures forming part of the original barracks complex.

Setting:

The building is set back from and parallel with the road with gravel driveway approach from east. Attached building to south-west (HB16 16 021B), mature hedgerow to north-west, mature gardens to south-east with boundary walls and tower structure associated with former barracks forming immediate
setting.

The barracks accommodation building was formerly surrounded by an inner boundary wall with four two-storey corner towers. Adjacent to the roadside the uncoursed rubblestone boundary survives and forms a retaining wall, extending from north-eastern elevation of surviving tower. One of the corner towers, to the north-west, survives in a complete condition, while there are extant remains of the north-east and south-east towers. Several further sections of the inner uncoursed rubblestone barrack wall survive as boundary walls to the gardens of HB16/16/021A and B.

The former barracks complex is located at the foot of Slievebrack/Croslieve mountains with extensive views to the north of surrounding countryside within the ring of Gullion.

Materials:
Roof: Artificial slate
Walling: Painted roughcast render
Windows: Timber sliding sash and casement
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

One of a pair of semi-detached dwellings that were originally constructed as a yeomanry barrack in 1795. The building was converted after 1821 to provide accommodation for a curate and a dispensary providing free medical treatment was housed in an outbuilding. In 1891 the building was sold to the Catholic Church and became the parochial house for St Mary’s, Mullaghbawn.

The barrack in Shanroe townland was built in the aftermath of disturbances which followed the Berkley outrage of 1791, in which a schoolmaster and his wife were maimed (the wife subsequently died of her wounds) by members of an agrarian secret society called the Defenders. Musgrave’s Memoirs of the 1798 rebellion assert that there was an earlier barrack in Forkhill, built in 1689 ‘to repress the ferocious spirit of the raparees’ and enduring until c1755. Little supporting evidence remains to confirm this – however, some intriguing structures are shown on Rocque’s 1760 map of County Armagh to the north of ‘Cross Clave mountains’ which may represent the barrack towers.

Immediately following the Berkley outrage, trustees for the recently deceased landlord, Richard Jackson, wrote to the Bishop of Dromore suggesting that a barrack should be built at Forkhill for a company of foot. The formal purchase of the barracks site did not take place until some years later, although some researchers have suggested that the barracks was built before the conveyance was drawn up. The current site, located near the dwelling where Alexander Berkley had been attacked, was formally purchased in 1795 by the Commissioners of the Barracks from Jackson’s trustees for the sum of £291.12s.11d and a barracks constructed upon it, known variously as Belmo(u)nt Barracks, Mountain Barrack, Forkhill Barrack and Shanroe Barrack. A local force, the Forkhill Yeomanry, later the Upper Orier Yeomanry, was formed under Colonel Ogle shortly after the opening of the barracks. Ogle’s mother-in-law, and Richard Jackson’s sister, Susanna Barton, a trustee of Richard Jackson’s estate, is said to have provided the necessary funds to establish the barracks, a gesture which was publicly praised by parish inhabitants.

During the United Irish rebellion, there is evidence of activity at Belmont barracks and engagement in suppressing the rebellion. Colonel Ogle wrote from Belmont in March 1797 to an aide-de-camp to General Lake to report that a local informer in Forkhill knew of pikes hidden in caves at Cave Hill, Belfast. A company of the North Britons Fencibles were stationed at the barracks in June 1798 and were engaged in pursuing the Rebel forces on Slieve Gullion. A local ballad evokes this period:

‘Though the Scotch Horse were in Belmont, and Roden’s riders too,
We forged good steel in Quilly, beside the old Creg-Dubh.’

The North Britons were subsequently assisted at Belmont Barracks by a company of the Sutherland Fencibles who marched from Belfast to Dundalk that same month. According to L P Murray, writing about the barracks in 1937, the building retained at that time ‘many marks and evidences of its original use’ and only a few years before a ‘Whipping Tower, with its gruesome appliances’ had been removed from a position at the right corner of the entrance. According to local tradition, a lane at the rear of the barracks was known as ‘Whipping Lane’. Another traditional ballad entitled ‘The Carrive Blacksmith’ commemorates Thomas Lappin, a blacksmith and United Irishman who was arrested for making pikestaffs and flogged over a number of days at Belmont, nonetheless refusing to divulge the names of his associates.

The building is shown on the first edition OS map of 1835, captioned ‘Old Barrack’ with four roughly square-on-plan structures marking the corners of an inner enclosing wall surrounded by a three-sided outer wall. Sections of the inner boundary wall are still present. The north eastern structure may be the ‘whipping tower’ referred to by L P Murray – some evidence of this tower and of the south-eastern tower remain on the site. The tower in the north western corner has been fully restored. A newspaper article of 1912, refers to the ‘towers of Belmont – occupied in the Penal days by the soldiery and associated with many a cruel and terrible deed’, indicating that the barracks was at one time characterised by these tall structures and that they continued to occupy a vivid place in folk memory a century later.

In due course, the barracks became obsolete, and it was sold to Rev James Campbell, Rector of Forkhill for £70 in 1821. The former barracks appears to have been purchased for the specific purpose of establishing a dispensary for the Forkhill district. Kyla Madden asserts that Forkhill dispensary was established in 1821 with funds from Richard Jackson’s trust, which fits with this timeline. The former barracks were converted into two dwellings, one of the houses being occupied by a doctor and a building on the site being used as a dispensary, where the poor could obtain free medicines and medical treatment.

The Townland Valuation of the 1830s records the current dwelling as being occupied by Rev James Smith, the curate of Forkill parish, while the adjacent house (HB16/16/021B) was occupied by Samuel Walker (1815/16-1845), the medical attendant for Forkhill Dispensary. The current house was valued at £6, with some of the value being deducted for the inconvenience of his neighbour ‘passing and repassing the door’. Dimensions are given for the current house, which suggest that the left-hand bay of the dwelling was single storey at this period. Dimensions are also given for two outbuildings which are two storeys high and may correspond to the north east and south east barrack towers. One was in use as a turf house. The dwelling’s quality mark indicates it was stone and slated, while the outbuildings were not new but in good repair although the turf house was slightly decayed.

Rev Campbell, the owner of the houses and dispensary, died in 1858 and the building passed ultimately to Campbell’s nephew Peter Quinn of the Agency, Newry. The houses are shown on the 2nd edition OS map of 1862, captioned ‘Belmount’ and ‘Forkhill Dispensary’, the captioning appearing to indicate the north east tower as the location of the dispensary. Griffith’s Valuation of 1862 lists the houses as owned by Peter Quinn and occupied by John and Waddell McBride with valuations of £9.10s and £10 respectively. Valuation records suggest that Waddell McBride, farmer, lived in the current house, with John McBride, medical officer to Forkhill Dispensary District and constabulary, residing in the adjacent house. Dimensions are given for the house (the left-hand bay having been raised, by this period, to the same height at the main house),. Dimensions are given fora structure which may correspond to a barrack tower, although it differs somewhat from the dimensions given in the Townland Valuation. The valuator assessed the house as not new but in sound order and good repair and the towers as slightly decayed but in good repair.

In 1891 the building was sold to the Catholic Church for £300 and subsequently became the parochial house for St Mary’s, Mullaghbawn. Parish priests and their curates lived in the two semi-detached dwellings, the curate occupying the present dwelling, while the priest lived in the adjacent house. The first occupants in the 1890s were Rev John Markey (who purchased the barracks for the parish and was parish priest from 1888-95), Rev John Carraher and Rev Peter McCartney (parish priest from 1895 to 1909). The valuation of the two houses was reduced to £7 and £8 in 1901 suggesting that the houses had fallen into disrepair or were re-evaluated for some other reason. Porches to the front elevations of the two houses are first shown on the third edition OS map of 1906-7. These were originally flat-roofed and were re-roofed after 2015.

Subsequent occupants were Rev John Carraher (1895), Peter Johnston (1905), Rev Thomas McBrien (1912) Charles Montague (1919), James McCorey (1925), Rev. Austin Quinn (1928) and Rev McGribbon (after 1933). The census returns contain a record of the priests who lived in Belmount at this period. John Carraher, a local clergyman, who spoke both Irish and English, lived in the current house with his servant, Catherine Mullen in 1901. The two houses had six rooms each and were designated 2nd class, although they had 12 outbuildings between them ranging from stables to a potato house. In 1911 the current house was occupied by Thomas McBrien, curate, of Pomeroy, Tyrone who spoke Irish and English and his locally born servant.

At the time of the general revaluation in 1933 the house was revalued at £16. Dimensions and a plan are given for the house and outbuildings including the towers at the four corners of the site which were between 16 and 20 feet tall. The south eastern tower was noted to be in ruins in 1933 and the north eastern tower (the ‘whipping tower’) was deleted during the lifetime of the valuation notebook, which is consistent with the observation of L P Murray above. The curate’s house contained two sitting rooms, a kitchen and a pantry and three bedrooms on the upper floor. However, the house had no bathroom and was judged to be ‘a little poorer inside’ than its neighbour. A rear outbuilding containing a bathroom was added c1940.

From September 1940 to January 1941, parish records show that a garage (still present), constructed of concrete block and tiled, was constructed at the current house. The curate’s house was subsequently occupied by Patrick McDonnell (1948), Charles Hart (1950), Rev Brendon McDonnell (1955) and Rev Michael Murtagh (1968). The building continued as a parochial house in the ownership of the Catholic Church until December 1984 when the two houses were sold and became private domestic dwellings.

A 1989 photograph of the house (Murphy, p.53) does not show the single storey extension to the east or the datestone on the eastern elevation. The present owner of number 4 confirms that the datestone was carved by a stonemason on the Shankill Road, and added in recent years (owner information, 2022).

References:

Primary Sources:

1. PRONI D1594/291 Rocque’s map of County Armagh 1760
2. Belfast Newsletter, 25th May 1795
3. PRONI T755/4B Transcripts of Pelham Papers (1797)
4. PRONI T680/1 Extracts conveyance of old barrack and ground at Shanroe, Forkhill, Co Armagh (15 October 1821)
5. First report from His Majesty’s Commissioners for inquiring into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland. London: House of Commons (1835)
6. PRONI OS/6/2/28/1 First Edition Six Inch OS map (1835)
7. PRONI VAL/1/B/247 Townland Valuation, Barony of Upper Orior, Parish of Forkhill (c1835)
8. PRONI D4338/4/3 Bundle of letters from Forkhill Dispensary to Chairman of Forkhill Board of Trustees (1845-47)
9. PRONI OS/6/2/28/2 Second Edition Six Inch OS map (1862)
10. PRONI VAL/2/B/2/35B Griffith’s Valuation Parish of Forkhill (1862)
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/12/13A-D (1859-1923) Annual Revision Lists, ED Forkhill
12. PRONI Val/12/A/3/75 (1895-1897) Newry Union Valuers’ Notebook, Vol 1
13. Portadown News 21st April, 1888
14. Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 2nd November 1912
15. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/21A (1924-1929) Annual Revision Lists, ED Mullaghbane
16. PRONI OS/6/2/28/3 Third Edition Six Inch OS map (1906-7)
17. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/15 (1935-1957) First General Revaluation, Rural District of Newry, Vol 1
18. PRONI VAL/3/D/2/6/Z/5 (1933-57) Valuers RV Binder, ED Mullaghbane
19. PRONI CR/2/15/2/6 Account book relating to renovation and decoration of St Mary’s Mullaghbawn and the parochial house (1940-41)
20. Frontier Sentinel, 30th June 1945
21. PRONI VAL/4/B/2/24 (1956-1972) Second General Revaluation, Rural District of Newry, No 2
22. PRONI OS/6/2/28/4 Fourth Edition Six Inch OS map (1956-7)

Secondary Sources:

23. Clarke, R S J A directory of Ulster doctors (who qualified before 1901): Vols 1-2 Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation (2013)
24. Madden, Kyla. Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787-1858 Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2006), pp.21, 37-8, 43
25. Murphy, K ‘Belmont Barracks’ Journal of the Creggan Local History Society, Vol 1, No 3, pp.52-59
26. Murray, L P ‘Shanroe Barrack (1795-1821)’ Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol 9, No 1 (1937) pp.19-29
27. Musgrave, Sir Richard (Myers, S W and McKnight, D W eds.) Memoirs of the 1798 rebellion [1802] 4th edition. Fort Wayne, Indiana: Round Tower Books (reprinted 1995), p.51
28. O Fiaich, Thomas ‘Parish Priests of Mullaghbawn’ Journal of Mullaghbawn Historical and Folklore Society, Vol 2
29. Walsh, Una and Murphy, Kevin (eds.) Kick any stone: townlands, people and stories of Forkhill parish. Jordanstown: O’Donnell Press (2003), p.100

Online sources:

30. https://www.ringofgullion.org/living-history/villages/forkhill/
31. Shanroe – Army Barracks of Eighteenth-Century Ireland (ucd.ie)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed

Evaluation

The former Belmont Barrack building dates from 1795, possibly replacing an earlier structure built to serve the same function in 1689. After 1821, the barracks became the dwelling of a doctor and one of the outbuildings housed a dispensary, providing medical assistance to the local community for 70 years including througout the period of the Great Famine. After 1891 the former barracks became the parochial house for St Mary''s Mullaghbawn. As such, the site has played a crucial role in the history of the local area spanning over three centuries.

Over time a number of alterations have been made to the current building. These include the addition of a front porch c1900 to which a hipped roof has recently been added; the replacement of some windows, roof and rainwater goods; an extension to the east and a paved area to the front. These alterations have detracted from the integrity of the original barracks building and, despite the structure''s local and regional historical significance, it does not therefore meet the criteria for listing.

General comments

Building originally scoped 2015 by Consarc. Recording visit carried out 16 December 2019 by ACA, but internal access not granted. Further recording visit carried out 23.08.2022 by GA and NO'R. Evaluated 22.11.22 as RO, but also assessed by LMcQ as meeting criteria for scheduling. SMR number ARM028:041 has been allocated and scheduling process due to take place within coming year.
GA (13.12.2022)