| Description |
Described as an imposing and dramatic ruin with an interesting and varied history Tristernagh was originally an important Augustinian Abbey, founded c. 1200 by Geoffrey de Costentin (boi). After the dissolution of the monasteries and abbeys it was granted to the Piers Family, Elizabethan settlers. In 1783 Sir William Pigot Piers turned part of the building into a residence, which is named as Tristernagh House on the first edition OS map. It was unoccupied in 1814. A new house/cottage was built to the north of the abbey in the early nineteenth-century which is marked on the first edition OS map (N332 616). It is not clear which of these houses Lewis is referring to as the seat of Sir John Piers Bt in 1837. The 25 inch map of the early 20th century named this later building as Tristeragh House, while the original Tristeragh House at the abbey site was a ruin. Woods writes that the ‘late J Eivers Esq, J.P., lived for years in the cottage built by the late Sir John Piers’ while the mansion built by Sir Pigot William Piers in 1783 was ‘a crumbling ruin’. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (publ. 1854) James Evers was recorded as the occupant of a house at Tristernagh valued at £10 held from Hamilton Geale. Shepherd Patrick Garry with family members was living here in 1901 and 1911. They held the house from Colonel John R Malone. The house is still extant. |
