Mount Kearney, Carnacally Road, Saval Beg, Newry, Co Down, BT

Mount Kearney is the ruined shell of a once-impressive late 18th-century landowner's house, set within a small and largely stripped-out demesne on the west side of Carnacally Road. The building is privately owned and recorded as derelict. It is aligned north to south and is made up of two distinct parts: a northern block that is vernacular in character, and a grander but lower single-storey southern block added later.

The northern block is two storeys high and three bays wide, with a rear pile projecting behind its southern left bay. The pitched natural slate roof — now missing over the central and left bays — has overhanging masonry eaves and half-round rainwater goods. There are rendered chimneys on the ridge between the central and right bays, on the rear pitch between the central and left bays, and on the rear pitch of the left gable. The east-facing front elevation has lined cement render walls with stepped stucco quoins. At ground floor level, the left bay contains a half-glazed door with a narrow window to its right. The central bay has a semi-elliptical headed dressed granite archway with advancing spring-block and keystone; this has been infilled and now contains a window opening. The right bay has a plain window opening at ground floor. Each of the three bays has a small window at first floor. The north gable is rendered and blank, with its left corner abutted by a high rubble stone wall enclosing a small domestic yard to the north and west of the block.

The west elevation is rendered. The left bay has a window opening at ground floor and a blank first floor. The central bay is abutted by a small derelict lean-to, with a window above at first floor. The rear pile abuts the right bay and has a similar pitched roof. Its north gable has a first floor window at left and was abutted at ground floor right by a lean-to, now gone, which left an opening in the party wall. The west elevation of this rear pile has rendered stepped quoins and a single window on each floor, both with sandstone cills. The south gable of the rear pile is flush with the south gable of the front pile; both are cement rendered and are almost entirely abutted by the single-storey southern block. The small section of exposed wall that remains on the left has a narrow 1-over-1 sash window at ground floor and another at first floor. The gable is also abutted by a narrow chimneybreast projecting from the southern block.

The southern block is single storey with three bays, and has a semi-basement beneath the southern bay only. The pitched natural slate roof was originally hipped at the south end and is now entirely gone. The walls are rendered with flush eaves and moulded cast-iron rainwater goods. The north gable abuts the south end of the northern block, and the east elevation is flush with the east elevation of the northern block but has a lower wall-head.

The east elevation of the southern block is three bays wide. The right (north) bay is abutted by a cube porch with a flat roof and walls matching the main block, finished with a moulded stucco cornice. The front (east) and right (north) cheeks of the porch each have a window opening with sandstone cills, the east one being infilled. The left (south) cheek of the porch has a shallow semi-elliptical headed doorway containing the remains of a multi-panelled door set between two decorative Ionic columns that carry an entablature with a fluted frieze and patera. The opening reveals have reeded pilasters. The central bay of the east elevation has a late 19th-century canted bay window with a timber frame and moulded and fretted timber eaves; each of its three cheeks has a segmental headed 1-over-1 sash window. The left (south) bay has a tall infilled window opening to its centre.

The south elevation of the southern block exposes the semi-basement, as the ground falls away at this point. The elevation is lined rendered with stepped quoins. The basement has a window at left and a similar opening at right that also incorporates a door. There is a large window at ground floor centre. All openings have cement stucco trim. The west elevation of the southern block is rendered with stepped quoins and each of its three bays has a single large window opening with granite cills.

Before the building was destroyed by fire, survey photographs taken in September 1976 and December 1986 recorded the interiors in considerable detail. One image shows a small room with raised floorboards revealing the joist gaps packed with straw and lime mortar. Another shows the front room in the central bay of the southern block, looking towards doorways leading into the rear room and the left bay. The high ceiling was flat with sloping sides, with a small floral centrepiece from which sixteen batwing segments radiated, set within a hoop and each terminating in an oval patera. The corners of the ceiling had small foliated quadrants. A reeded or fluted picture rail separated the walls from the ceiling. The two doorways in the same corner each had semicircular heads with moulded imposts and run moulded plaster archivolts; the left doorway was lower and appeared to have no door, while the right was taller, had an infilled head, and contained a Georgian panelled door with delicate applied mouldings.

A further image shows the front wall of the rear room in the central bay, now destroyed. At its centre was a large semicircular headed niche whose run moulded archivolt met the ceiling. To its left and right were six-panelled Georgian doors with delicate mouldings, reeded or fluted architraves, and a diminutive timber entablature continuing within the niche. A dado ran around the other walls of the room. Another slide shows the front end of the room in the right (north) bay of the southern block. The high ceiling was flat with sloping sides and had a run moulded cornice. The walls were papered and had a high moulded timber skirting, a moulded timber dado rail, and a high picture rail creating a narrow frieze. The left wall had a Georgian chimneypiece, possibly in Carrara marble, with reeded pilasters and a matching lintel; a small block with figurative carving sat over each pilaster, with a plain mantle shelf above. The right wall had a large semi-elliptical headed niche whose head broke the picture rail; this had a run moulded archivolt and reeded pilasters, and contained an urn-topped Georgian over-mantle.

Two further slides, believed to show the outbuildings, record single-storey linear blocks with overhanging pitched natural slate roofs. One end was half-hipped with fretted bargeboards. The chimneys were pairs of tall Tudor-style stacks on common bases. The walls were rendered and the windows were pairs of casements with glazing bars.

The house appears on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map along with what is probably the gate lodge. The 1836 Valuation records the occupant as James Parker and gives the house dimensions as 49 feet by 35 feet 6 inches by 11 feet, excluding the porch and basement; a second house on the same plot measured 19 feet by 37 feet by 15 feet. By the time of the 1860 Ordnance Survey map the premises are named as Mount Kearney and the gate lodge is explicitly identified. The 1862 Valuation records the occupant as James McWatty and gives similar dimensions to the earlier survey, but adds an "old dwelling house" measuring 45 feet by 24 feet by two storeys in height. The valuation remains constant from that point through to 1929, suggesting little or no change to the property from the mid-19th century onwards.

According to J.A.K. Dean's The Gate Lodges of Ulster (UAHS, 1994), the gate lodge was built by James Parker around 1830. A 1959 photograph shows it to have been a single-storey, two-bay building with a pitched natural slate roof, fretted bargeboards, and a squat chimney to the centre. The rendered walls had two semi-elliptical headed recesses on the south elevation, each containing a 2-over-2 sash window, with a similar window on the east gable. The lodge has since been demolished.

The Parker family's gravestones survive in a nearby private graveyard on Coalpit Road, with links to this house; the oldest stone is inscribed "Ellen, James & Rose Parker." Further gravestones commemorate Schlena Gordon (died 1943), A. De R. Gordon (died 1957), and Ann Gordon (died 1986), all of Mount Kearney. Mrs Ann Gordon was the last occupant of the house. The holy table in St Bartholomew's Church of Ireland, Donaghmore, is dedicated to her and to her father, Colonel Annesley De R. Gordon D.S.O., O.B.E., M.R.C.V.S., J.P. Before moving to Mount Kearney, the Gordons occupied Curley House. The house caught fire while vacant in the late 1980s.

The demesne has been largely cleared of vegetation. The farmyard that formerly stood at the bottom of the hill to the south of the house has been completely removed. Little planting survives apart from a tree-lined driveway approaching from the east and a shelter belt of rhododendron in the field to the east of the house.