Dripsey Castle House to become €2m family home

Dripsey Castle House and its demesne of 110 acres has been sold for a sum close to its guide price of €2m.

The Georgian manor house, built by John Colthurst and his wife Jane Bowen in the late 18th century and which was latterly owned by the O’Shaughnessy family who set up Dripsey Woollen Mills, had been on the market for just six months before being sold at the end of last year.

The house, which is in need of considerable investment, was purchased by a UK-based buyer with Cork connections. It’s believed it will be restored to a family home.

Originally standing on a demesne of 1,400 acres, and including the remains of Carrignamuck, or Dripsey Castle, a tower house built by Cormac Laidir McCarthy in the 15th century, the property gained a certain amount of notoriety in the early 20th century as the home of John Bowen Colthurst who was court-martialled for the summary execution of two newspaper editors and Francis Sheehy Skeffington during the 1916 Rising.

By the early 1940s the O’Shaughnessy family was in situ following the purchase of a nearby paper mills in 1903, set up an international business weaving woollen blankets — the famous Dripsey Woollen Mills brand. The business closed in the early 1980s.

Located outside Dripsey village and dominated by the 120’ Carrignamuck Castle on a weir in the Dripsey river, the house has nine bedrooms, a number of bathrooms and a three-bed apartment.

Surrounded by oak trees, the house is in good condition, and comes with an untouched courtyard of buildings to the rear. The main house is set over two storeys, with large attic rooms.

A ballroom wing was added in the late 19th century.