Easter Rising Stories

ON THIS DAY

23 October

1922. The Nenagh Guardian reports Tullamaine Castle burned

Mitchelstown Castle, County Cork, from Neale’s Views of Seats, 1825. Burned 13 August 1922. The largest Irish country house destroyed in the Civil War.

On 23 October 1922 the Nenagh Guardian reported “Another Tipperary castle destroyed.” Tullamaine Castle, near Fethard, had been burned in the previous week. The paper called it one of the county’s finest private mansions and put the damage at £60,000. 23 October is the date of the report, not the date of the fire. Gemma Clark notes that the story drew little further local coverage. By that autumn another burned mansion was no longer unusual news.

The same report said a large force of anti-Treaty IRA had occupied the house. Terence Dooley places Tullamaine with Macroom Castle among mansions taken by anti-Treaty forces and burned when the National Army came up, so the building could not be used as a barracks.

How many houses, and why

Dooley estimates nearly 300 Irish country houses — the residences of the former landed elite — were destroyed in 1920–23. Most of that destruction fell in the Civil War: about two and a half times the number burned in the War of Independence. In Tipperary, Clark counts four Big Houses burned between January 1920 and July 1921, and twenty-nine between January 1922 and April 1923.

Motives were not one thing. Some houses were military positions. Mitchelstown Castle, occupied from 29 June 1922 by anti-Treaty men under Commandant Patrick Luddy, was burned on 13 August as government troops approached. It was the largest house lost. Other houses were burned after the Public Safety Resolution of 28 September 1922, when anti-Treaty units were ordered to strike the homes of Free State senators and of men classed as imperialists. Some burnings followed local land disputes. Some mixed several of these. Religion alone does not map the pattern. Catholic-owned houses were burned. Protestant-owned houses were left standing.

Clark sets Tullamaine inside a wider Tipperary pattern: hayricks, farms, shops and ordinary houses were also fired; threatening letters, boycotts and attacks on livestock ran alongside the mansions. The Big House was the visible end of that violence, not the only end.

What happened to Tullamaine

Many burned houses were left as shells or pulled down. Tullamaine was repaired. Clark records that when it was advertised in the Irish Times in 1982 the asking price was about £300,000.

References

Clark, G. (2022) ‘23 October 1922: The Burning of Tullamaine Castle’, Century Ireland. Cites Nenagh Guardian, 23 October 1922: burned the previous week; damage £60,000. Tipperary totals 4 (1920–21) and 29 (1922–23). Later repair and 1982 sale.

Dooley, T. (2022) Burning the Big House. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nearly 300 houses, 1920–23.

Dooley, T. (2022) ‘Burning down the house: Big House burnings during the Civil War’, RTÉ History. Tullamaine and Macroom commandeered, then burned on evacuation.

Dooley, T. (2022) ‘13 August 1922: The Destruction of Mitchelstown Castle’, Century Ireland. Largest house destroyed; occupied 29 June under Patrick Luddy.