Cootehall

Cootehall (Irish: Uachtar Thíre, meaning "Upper Territory",[3] also Cloigne) is a village in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is located on the River Boyle, between Boyle and Carrick-on-Shannon near Lough Key Forest Park in the north of the county.

Cootehall Uachtar Thíre
Village
New housing in Cootehall
Cootehall Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 53°59′04″N 8°09′30″W
Country	Ireland
Province	Connacht
County	County Roscommon
Elevation [1]	52 m (171 ft)
Population  (2016)[2]	184
Time zone	UTC+0 (WET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (IST (WEST))

Cootehall lies 4 kilometres off the N4 road from Dublin to Sligo and between the R284 and R285 regional roads.

The Boyle River, which flows through Cootehall, connects the village with Lough Key to the west and the River Shannon to the east.

History

Cootehall was formerly called Urtaheera, or O'Mulloy's Hall, and was, early in the 17th century, together with the manor attached to it, the property of William, styled "the Great O'Mulloy ;" but in the war of 1641 it came into the possession of the English Cromwellian, Chidley Coote, nephew of the first Earl of Mountrath, and from that family took its present name.

House

Oakport Lough, viewed from Coote Hall (1845 engraving).

In the 17th and 18th century the house, also called "Cootehall", was built and occupied by the Coote family. The piper Turlough O'Carolan is recorded as having visited the house and composed tunes for the occupants.

At some part of the 18th century the house was occupied by Maurice O'Connor. Maurice O'Connor bought Coote Hall from the Coote family for £75,000 or £76,000 around 1725.[4] In the 19th century Coothall was part of the Kilronan Castle Estate which belonged to the Tenison family. A detail survey of Coothall was made in 1862 for E.K. Tenison.[5] The house at Coothall was occupied by Mr. Barton as a tenant of the Kilronan Estate.

Lady Louisa Tenison mentioned Coothall in her will of 1878 which is currently in the National Archives of Ireland.

The house survives to the present day.[6][7]

Suburban-style housing

During the early 21st century, a number of government incentives promoted 'development' of the midland counties. However, these incentives were not dovetailed into the County Council development plans which identified the scale of need for new housing. Cootehall was a hamlet until the 2000s when a number of housing developments were built during the Irish property bubble. It is now a larger village in terms of the number of houses. However, many of these houses remained unoccupied from the time they were built until at least 2018.[8] Cootehall's ghost estates have used as an archetypal example of the phenomenon.[9]

People

• Writer John McGahern's father was based in the police station in Cootehall which inspired his novel The Barracks.
• The politician Seán Doherty was born and raised in Cootehall.

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland

References

1. Cootehall Archived 29 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine Ordnance Survey Ireland. Retrieved: 2013-10-20.
2. "Sapmap Area - Settlements - Cootehall". Census 2016. Central Statistics Office. April 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
3. Cootehall Placenames Database of Ireland. Retrieved: 2013-10-20.
4. Carolan: Donal O'Sullivan Vol 2, p73.
5. N.L.I. MSS 19.747
6. "Estate Record: Coote". Landed Estates Database. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
7. "House: Coote Hall". Landed Estates Database. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
8. "Buyer-beware warning as Roscommon 'ghost estate' goes for a song". irishtimes.com. Irish Times. 7 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
9. "More than 90% of 'ghost estates' completed". irishtimes.com. Irish Times. 7 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2020.