4 Glendesha Road, Mullaghbawn, Newry, Co. Armagh, BT359XN

The former Belmont Barracks is a semi-detached two-storey, three-bay building constructed around 1795 by the Commissioners of the Barracks, located in the townland of Shanroe near Mullaghbawn, at the foot of the Slievebrack and Croslieve mountains within the Ring of Gullion, with extensive views north across the surrounding countryside. It is one of a pair of semi-detached dwellings that together formed the original barrack building. The site has played a significant role in the history of the local area spanning more than three centuries.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The barracks may have replaced an earlier structure built in 1689 to suppress agrarian unrest, though little firm evidence survives to confirm this; Musgrave's Memoirs of the 1798 Rebellion records such a barrack at Forkhill, described as built 'to repress the ferocious spirit of the raparees' and enduring until around 1755, and some structures visible on Rocque's 1760 map of County Armagh to the north of the 'Cross Clave mountains' may represent its towers.

The present building was constructed in direct response to the Berkeley outrage of 1791, in which a local schoolmaster and his wife were maimed by members of the Defenders, an agrarian secret society (the wife later died of her wounds). Trustees of the recently deceased landlord Richard Jackson wrote to the Bishop of Dromore proposing a barracks for a company of foot at Forkhill. The site, located near the dwelling where Alexander Berkeley had been attacked, was formally purchased in 1795 by the Commissioners of the Barracks from Jackson's trustees for £291 12s 11d. The building was known variously as Belmont Barracks, Mountain Barrack, Forkhill Barrack, and Shanroe Barrack. A local force, the Forkhill Yeomanry — later the Upper Orier Yeomanry — was formed under Colonel Ogle shortly after the barracks opened. Ogle's mother-in-law, Susanna Barton, who was also Richard Jackson's sister and a trustee of his estate, is said to have provided the funds to establish the barracks, a gesture publicly praised by parish inhabitants.

During the United Irish rebellion there is documented activity at the barracks. In March 1797, Colonel Ogle wrote from Belmont to an aide-de-camp to General Lake reporting intelligence about pikes hidden at Cave Hill, Belfast. In June 1798, a company of the North Britons Fencibles was stationed here and engaged in pursuing rebel forces on Slieve Gullion; they were subsequently joined by a company of the Sutherland Fencibles, who marched from Belfast to Dundalk that same month. A local ballad of the period evokes this: 'Though the Scotch Horse were in Belmont, and Roden's riders too, We forged good steel in Quilly, beside the old Creg-Dubh.' Another traditional ballad, 'The Carrive Blacksmith', commemorates Thomas Lappin, a blacksmith and United Irishman who was arrested for making pikestaffs and flogged over several days at Belmont, refusing throughout to name his associates. Writing in 1937, L P Murray noted that the building still retained at that time 'many marks and evidences of its original use', and that only a few years previously a 'Whipping Tower, with its gruesome appliances' had been removed from the right corner of the entrance. A lane at the rear was traditionally known as 'Whipping Lane'. A newspaper article of 1912 refers to 'the towers of Belmont — occupied in the Penal days by the soldiery and associated with many a cruel and terrible deed', indicating that the towers remained vivid in local folk memory over a century after the barracks closed.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1835 shows the building captioned 'Old Barrack', with four roughly square-plan structures marking the corners of an inner enclosing wall surrounded by a three-sided outer wall. The barracks became obsolete and was sold in 1821 to Reverend James Campbell, Rector of Forkhill, for £70. It was converted into two semi-detached dwellings, one occupied by a doctor and the other by a curate. A dispensary providing free medicines and medical treatment to the poor was established in an outbuilding, with funding from Richard Jackson's trust, and served the local community for approximately 70 years, including throughout the period of the Great Famine. The Townland Valuation of the 1830s records the current dwelling as occupied by Reverend James Smith, curate of Forkhill parish, while the adjacent house was occupied by Samuel Walker (medical attendant for Forkhill Dispensary from 1815/16 to 1845). The current house was valued at £6, with a deduction noted for the inconvenience of the neighbour 'passing and repassing the door'. Dimensions recorded at this time suggest that the left-hand bay of the dwelling was still single-storey. Two outbuildings described as two storeys high may correspond to the north-east and south-east barrack towers; one was in use as a turf house. The main dwelling was of stone and slated; the outbuildings were not new but in good repair, though the turf house was slightly decayed.

Reverend Campbell died in 1858 and the property passed to his nephew Peter Quinn of the Agency, Newry. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1862 shows the houses captioned 'Belmount' and 'Forkhill Dispensary', with the captioning apparently indicating the north-east tower as the dispensary's location. Griffith's Valuation of 1862 lists the houses as owned by Peter Quinn and occupied by John and Waddell McBride, valued at £9 10s and £10 respectively; Waddell McBride, farmer, lived in the current house, while John McBride, medical officer to Forkhill Dispensary District and the constabulary, lived next door. By this time the left-hand bay had been raised to the same height as the main house. A structure recorded at this period may correspond to one of the barrack towers, though it differs somewhat in dimensions from those recorded in the Townland Valuation. The house was assessed as not new but in sound order and good repair; the towers were noted as slightly decayed but in good repair.

In 1891 the building was sold to the Catholic Church for £300 and became the parochial house for St Mary's, Mullaghbawn, with the parish priest occupying the adjacent house and the curate the present dwelling. The first occupants in the 1890s were Reverend John Markey (parish priest 1888–95, who purchased the barracks for the parish), Reverend John Carraher, and Reverend Peter McCartney (parish priest 1895–1909). The valuations of the two houses were reduced to £7 and £8 in 1901, suggesting deterioration or re-evaluation. Porches to the front elevations of both houses are first shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906–07; these were originally flat-roofed. Subsequent occupants of the current house included Reverend John Carraher (1895), Peter Johnston (1905), Reverend Thomas McBrien (1912), Charles Montague (1919), James McCorey (1925), Reverend Austin Quinn (1928), and Reverend McGribbon (after 1933).

Census returns record that in 1901 John Carraher, a local clergyman who spoke both Irish and English, lived in the house with his servant, Catherine Mullen. Both semi-detached houses had six rooms each and were classified as 2nd class, with twelve outbuildings between them including stables and a potato house. In 1911 the house was occupied by Thomas McBrien, curate, from Pomeroy, County Tyrone, who also spoke Irish and English, with a locally born servant.

At the time of general revaluation in 1933, the house was revalued at £16. The curate's house at this period contained two sitting rooms, a kitchen and pantry on the ground floor, and three bedrooms upstairs; it had no bathroom and was judged to be 'a little poorer inside' than its neighbour. The 1933 valuation records dimensions and plans for the house and outbuildings, including the four corner towers, which were between 16 and 20 feet tall. The south-east tower was already noted as being in ruins at this date, and the north-east tower (identified as the 'Whipping Tower' by L P Murray) was subsequently demolished during the lifetime of the valuation notebook. A rear outbuilding containing a bathroom was added around 1940. Parish account books record that between September 1940 and January 1941 a garage was constructed at the property in concrete block with a tiled roof; this structure still survives to the east of the main building.

Subsequent curates included Patrick McDonnell (1948), Charles Hart (1950), Reverend Brendan McDonnell (1955), and Reverend Michael Murtagh (1968). The building remained in the ownership of the Catholic Church as a parochial house until December 1984, when both semi-detached dwellings were sold and became private domestic residences.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building has a rectangular plan form. Its principal elevation faces north-west. Walls are finished in painted roughcast render with smooth rendered eaves course, plinth, and narrow margin corners. The roof is pitched and clad in fibre cement artificial slate with ridge tiles. There are two red brick chimneystacks with profiled brick cornices, lead flashing, and terracotta chimney pots. Rainwater goods are uPVC and aluminium.

The asymmetrical principal north-west elevation has square-headed window openings with granite cills and smooth raised margins. Windows are two-over-two single-glazed timber sliding sash. A multi-paned stained-glass timber sliding sash window is positioned in the porch, and a leaded stained-glass fixed-pane window occupies the north-east corner of the principal elevation. The timber panelled entrance door is positioned to the north-east of the entrance porch, with a bootscraper adjacent.

A single-storey single-bay entrance porch to the north-west has a hipped roof, added around 1900 and re-roofed after 2015. A single-storey single-bay extension to the north-east extends to the rear.

The gabled north-east elevation features a datestone inscribed '1795', though this was added after 1989 by the current owner — carved by a stonemason on the Shankhill Road — and does not date from the original construction. There is also a timber casement window on this elevation.

The rear south-west elevation has two half-dormers with leaded flat roofs and dormer cheeks with timber casement windows, and a three-over-six timber sliding sash window at first floor level on the south-west side.

A single-storey three-bay lean-to extends to the south-east. A cantilevered flat-roof extension also to the south-east has a decorative metal crest to the flat roof, supported on a bracketed eaves board. The south-east elevation of this extension has rendered piers with infill square-headed window openings with concrete sills. The south-west elevation is four-bay with square-headed openings, timber casement windows, and a timber-framed glazed door opening onto a raised external courtyard.

A two-storey split-level extension to the south-east has a hipped roof clad in asbestos tiles, with replacement metal rainwater goods. Walls are roughcast rendered with a raised smooth rendered eaves course and smooth narrow margins. Openings are square-headed with smooth rendered margins. A polycarbonate lean-to is attached to its south-east elevation.

A rendered boundary party wall with the adjacent property extends from the south-east rear elevation into the gardens.

The free-standing garage to the east, built around 1940, has a pitched asbestos-tiled roof, replacement metal rainwater goods, lined and ruled rendered walling, square-headed openings, fixed timber-pane windows, and timber sheeted doors.

To the front, the principal north-west elevation is approached by a raised area paved with concrete flags extending the full length of the front elevation, with modern replacement fencing and a wrought iron entrance gate. The rear south-east elevation has a concrete path and a rendered retaining wall with concrete coping, with mature gardens beyond.

SETTING AND SURVIVING BARRACK REMAINS

The building is set back from and parallel with the road, approached by a gravel driveway from the east. It is attached on its south-west side to the neighbouring semi-detached property. A mature hedgerow lies to the north-west, and mature gardens extend to the south-east with boundary walls and a tower structure associated with the former barracks forming the immediate setting.

The original barracks accommodation building was formerly surrounded by an inner boundary wall with four two-storey corner towers. The uncoursed rubblestone boundary wall survives adjacent to the roadside as a retaining wall, extending from the north-east elevation of the surviving tower. The north-west corner tower survives in complete condition. Remains of the north-east and south-east towers are also extant. Several further sections of the inner uncoursed rubblestone barrack wall survive as boundary walls to the gardens of both semi-detached properties.