The National Famine Museum | Strokestown Park

Situated on a level landscape. A castle of O'Conor Roe existed at Strokestown, which was called Beal Aith na mBuille - the mouth of the ford of the strokes (battle), although it can be interpreted as the town of the mills (Donlon 1990; Kelly 2006). A battle was fought here amongst the MacBrannan in 1411 (ALC, vol. 2, 139), after which O'Conor Roe took possession of the area (Lennon 2009, 8). The castle was destroyed by Mac Diarmada in 1552 (ALC vol. 2, 361). The castle of Bealnemully was granted to Teige Oge O'Conor Roe in 1585 (Freeman 1936, 162), but in 1593 ‘a little stone fortress called Balllinemullin’ was granted to Turlogh Byrne after the attainder of Teige Oge (Nicholls 1994, vol. 3, 223, No. 1593). In 1683 Bealnemully was described as a strong spring running off to the SW with a stone fort and a castle nearby. The bawn and flankers were then surviving (O'Flanagan 1931, vol. 1, 68-9). By the 1640s the land was mortgaged to Lucas Dillon of Lough Glinn (RO020-003----), who sold the lands in 1662 to Nicholas Mahon. The spring is just W of Strokestown Park House (RO023-172002-) which is thought to occupy the site of the castle. A wall in the basement (T c. 3m) is thought to be part of it. Capt. Nicholas Mahon, and his son John, built a house (RO023-172002-) on the site which may have been completed by 1696 and was commemorated in a date stone (Breffny and ffolliott 1975, 102-5).

In the 1730s the present house was built by Thomas Mahon to a design by Richard Castle on Palladian principles, and is a rectangular W-facing seven bay, three storey house over a basement which may be built around the earlier core. Two wings or pavilions of two storeys and four bays to the NW and SW of the house are connected to the house by curving walls with niches, that to the N being the kitchens, that to the S being stables with a groin-vaulted roof supported by a single line of Doric columns.

The house was altered in the early 19th century when Lord Hartland added a four column ionic portico entrance; he also re-designed the parkland and laid out the town of Strokestown in a grand manner. The house continued to be occupied by members of the Packenham Mahon family until 1981, and is now the Irish Famine Museum. (Dodd 1988; Bence-Jones 1988, 267) For the Famine Museum see this web-page accessed on 21/07/2015 http://www.strokestownpark.ie/famine-museum