Cool house under the mountain

Built in 1870, Coolkelure House flew the flag for Gothic architecture. Rose Martin goes to Coolemountain to see why its time has come

LATE spring 10 years ago, I swerved onto the little byroad leading up the mysterious, Coolkelure House. The long laneway ended abruptly at a small turning directly in front of the house, most of which was covered in a tangle of overgrown bushes that surrounded each side of the striking mansion.

A Hammer horror set-piece in the middle of the Irish countryside, this was not only an anachronism — it was downright weird. We don’t do neo-Gothic much in Ireland, (in houses, anyway) but this was plonked in a hidden valley in West Cork. Coolkelure was a strange one. I later discovered it had been designed by Hill and Co — a firm founded by the father of Ballymaloe’s Myrtle Allen, and was built in 1870. It was an early harbinger of Gothic Revival in Ireland, which, domestically at least, withered on the vine.