The bell tolls for the gatekeeper’s house

Teach Baile í Doirín has been home to the Conroy Family since the mid 1800s. Translated as ‘homestead of the little oakwood’, it was originally built as the Earl of Portarlington’s head carpenter’s house.

James Conroy (1843-1918) extended the original single-storey cottage to a two-storey residence as it stands today. Conroy was not only the head carpenter for four of the earls of Portarlington (the third to the sixth earls) but also the ...