Ballypatrick House.

Ballypatrick House stands in the small townland of Ballypatrick, consisting in area of just 38 statute acres. It nestles near the Mountain Grove deciduous wood and the ‘Avenue,' which was a roadway leading to the back or farm entrance to the main landlord's demesne and farm, the Earl of Bessborough in the townland of Kildalton. The townland of Ballypatrick had only three households in 1851, the curate of Templeorum, who lived in Ballypatrick House and two cottage holdings of James Butler and Patrick Kelly, comprising 3 acres each with dwelling and outhouse. Today the townland has only two households, the occupiers of the big house itself and a bungalow on the avenue leading to the former.

The original occupier of Ballypatrick House is not now known. It was probably some English gentleman who rented it and its 23 acres from the Earl of Bessborough. An old roadway leads from the back entrance to the Bessborough demesne via the Avenue, through part of Ballynametagh through the small wood to the south-west of the house to its front yard. The two round 18 th century piers remain intact today. Tradition says that when the hunt was out, ladies in their finery and carriages travelled this roadway to view it.

From the late 1700s Ballypatrick House was rented by the Parish of Templeorum from the Earl of Bessborough as the Parish Priest's residence and later the Templeorum curate's residence. Canon John Purcell P.P. was the last P.P. to live here until he moved to the newly built Parish Priest's house in Ardclone Piltown in c. late 1880s. From then until March 1923 Ballypatrick remained the Templeorum curate's residence. In March 1923 the curate Fr. John Clohessey moved into the former R.I.C. barracks in the village of Templeorum, above the present church. This remained the curate's residence until May 1980 when the curate Fr. Francis Maher moved into the new bungalow residence above the church.

Ballypatrick House consists of two storeys, with four chimneys, two on the main part and two on the lower wings of the house. The two additional wings were added to the house by its occupant in the 1980s, Giles Blondel. Subsequent to 1923 the retired priest Fr. Fielding from Rathkieran Mooncoin along with his brother and his wife lived in Ballypatrick. In the late 1920s Fr. Fielding purchased a water supply to the house from a well on O'Shea's land in Raheen, a quarter of a mile from the house.

The priests of the Parish of Templeorum while living in Ballypatrick House used shortcuts or old Masspaths through fields to get to the village of Templeorum. One of these paths was the remains of an old roadway which also led to the back entrance of Bessborough demesne and previously to the Anglo-Norman Daton demesne.

Path number one led from O'Shea's ‘Three-Corner' field, through three more of O'Shea's fields and through what was Grace's fields to the Holy Well field directly under the present Templeorum church and through the turnstile which takes you onto the road curving by the southern end of the graveyard.

Masspath number two led from the roadway into O'Shea's of Raheen, to their farmyard, by the back of their farmhouse, over two stiles, into Fitzgerald's and Grace's fields, negotiating two more stiles and a river crossing to the Holy Well field underneath the church and southern end of graveyard. The latter Mass path was shorter and more direct, so the priest more frequently used it when walking to Templeorum. Canon

William Carrigan would have used this Mass path and would have passed near the portal tomb or dolmen on O'Shea's hill. He describes its structure in Volume 4 of his 1905 History and Antiquites of the Diocese of Ossory, but ascribed the wrong geographical location to it, that of the site of the thatched chapel in upper Raheen, not O'Shea's hill. In his Notes to his 1905 publication, this error is mentioned and corrected. The pressure and volume of work accounts for this error in geographical location.

Mary O'Shea

Local Historian .

TOP