Breen’s Cottage, Tonywall, Derrylin, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, BT92 4AU

Breen's Cottage is a one and a half storey thatched house built between 1820 and 1839 as a lobby entry dwelling. It is set back behind a lawn facing the Derrylin/Kinawley road approximately one mile and three-quarters north-west of the former town centre.

The house is constructed of rubble stone with a whitened plaster finish that retains the effect of stonework, with no base to the front elevation. The entrance is protected by a square jambed windbreak porch containing a timber-sheeted door with a pair of glazed panels in the upper part, accessed by a projecting step and a further step on the plane of the door. The roof is thatched between concrete slab skews. There are three corbelled-topped chimneystack without pots: two rise from the gables and the third serves the kitchen hearth.

The front elevation contains two window openings to the left of the porch and one to the right, all vertically sliding sashes divided into two vertically. Small sash stops have been provided and the sills are of traditional depths. A flat roofed annex on the south-east gable is lit by a similar window and finished with a timber fascia.

The rear elevation has three pairs of double vertically sliding windows with plain sashes, sash stops, and deep sills. Both the north-west side and rear elevation have black plinths, with the rear plinth stepping down to account for the fall in ground. A small three-light horizontal window set above and to the right of the central double window provides light to the first floor landing. Each gable has a window matching those at the front. The rear wall of the annex is punctuated by a vertically sliding double window of reduced size and a timber sheeted door with a pair of vertical glazed panels in the upper part, with the black plinth continuing across this section.

A building is shown on this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834/35, though not recorded in the first valuation of 1836. The revised map of 1857 shows outbuildings to the north-west. The house appears in the second valuation of 1862 as a 'very neat concern', with Thomas Moffet senior listed as the occupant, the Earl of Erne as lessor, and a rateable value of £5. The house is identified locally by the presence of a thatched umbrella type shelter supported by a central tree trunk positioned close to the south-west corner of the dwelling.

The external appearance remains largely unaltered, and although the interior layout has been modified, the distinctive intentions of the original builder remain evident.