Dowth Question? Dowth House?

Meathgirl

was up at Dowth on Saturday.... Have a few questions!!!

1. The house nearby - who owns it? Private or a school ( its beautiful!)
2. who was John Boyle O Reilly ( memorial nearby!!)
3. The graveyard - a name?

buffalo

Well a quick google search answers your second question anyway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyle_O%27Reilly

Also, this is a nice page for information - http://www.nci.ie/dowthcastle/history.html

buffalo

Also, is this the house? http://homepage.eircom.net/~netterville/index1.htm

Fletch123

Meathgirl- was it easy to get into Dowth? DId you go yourself or on a tour? I've never been but it's always intrigued me.

Meathgirl

I went to Dowth by myself. Its not part of the tour..... You can't get into the chamber... its locked but its certainly worth a look.... sorry for late reply....

Fletch123

No worries. So you just grabbed a map and went yourself? Did you need to ask any landowners permission?

Riamfada

Dowth is OPW land as far as I know and its open to the public. The best of the three IMO as people dont visit it as much.

Fletch123

Deadly, I might pop up over the next few weeks to have a ramble. Thanks!

Degsy

buffalo wrote: »

Also, is this the house? http://homepage.eircom.net/~netterville/index1.htm

There's an inscription above the door of that place proclaiming it to be an Alms House..if its an alms house it certainly wasnt a mansion!

Clink

Grimes wrote: »

Dowth is OPW land as far as I know and its open to the public. The best of the three IMO as people dont visit it as much.

Indeed it is OPW land, like another poster said you can go have a ramble about the site but you can't go into the tomb. What looks like the entrance into the tomb is actually a souterrain that was dug out at a much later date, you can get into the chamber that way but it's kept locked up to the general public.

It's definately worth a trip to Dowth to get an idea of what Newgrange would have looked like before it became "Newgrangeland". Although Knowth is the best of the three in my opinion, so much to see as there's been so many phases of occupation there.

Wallacebiy

I think Dowth can be accessed by request ( someone offered me a sneaky look once but I never got the chance to avail ), and is planned to be included in tours once they've Finished archaeological excavation ( which they might have by now ) and spend the money tidying it up to make it accessible to the public ( which may never happen )

Knowth has the most going on , but is a bit confusing with the later medieval stuff . Dowth is very interesting in it's aspect (midwinter setting sun I think )


I wonder will we ever be lucky enough to find another site like them ( I feel West Cork is a good candidate myself for hiding something like that in )

buffalo

Sure you could hide anything in West Cork! I find it's very handy for getting rid of the aul' bodies.

sandie66

But only recently joined these forums. I was lucky enough to have an uncle who was really into his local history, so a good 30 years ago, he brought me and my cousins into Dowth (via the entrance with the ladder beside the cairn). We went a good 10 foot undergound and then crawled on our hands an knees around the tunnels. Some parts of the tunnels opened out into what felt like being inside a beehive shaped room with a hole in the roof. We came out into a large opening, which was open to the pblic. I will have to aske him where we came out. I went to have a visit at Dowth recently, and look at the castle. It looks like the manor and castle are being renovated, so will look quite good when they are finished. Also had a look at the memorial in the graveyeard next door, as according to my granny, we're a descendant of John Boyle O'Reilly. I asked my cousin about this, as everyyear, there's a service in August dedicated to his memory (popular with his fans) and seesm like he had to stand at the memorial each year.

Degsy

In relation to the house in Dowth there are actualy at least two of note.
The first is the grand mansion Dowth Hall built as part of a demense between 1720 and 1750 with the house being built in 1760ish.
The architect was believed to be George Darley who built Netterville Townhouse in Dublin in 1767.
The owner of the estate was Lord John Netterville,a prominent local landowner.
The house itself wa spartirtioned from the main tumulous,tower house,medieval church and graveyard by a plantation of trees.
Eight acres of ground was dimited in an oval shape and bounded by a row of trees to form the "deer park" between the mansion and the boyne.
The grounds contained a pleasure ground witth caves and two small tumuli or "moats" with an orchard .
Most of the demense was used for agriculture although a race course was laid out to the eastern end in which horse races were held in the 18th,19th and 20th centuries.

The other house that i referred to as an alms house was built in 1877 by the Netterville Charity.
It is a seven bay,two story building built of red brick with limestone and blue and black trim.
A plaque over tyhe door states it was built with the surplus money form the Netterville Charity which included The Earl of Fingal and malalchy strong Hussey from Westown in Nth Co Dublin.
In 1901 the alms house contained eight widows,seven orpphans and the matron,Caroline McGrath.
Most of the orphans were born in co meath,the widows were from Dublin,mayo,Louth and Armagh.