31 Main Street, Camlough, Newry, BT35 7JG

Numbers 31 and 33 Main Street, Camlough are a conjoined pair of low-set, two-storey urban vernacular dwellings forming the left-hand end of a terrace on the northwest side of Main Street. They face southeast, with the Camlough River flowing southward just beyond, under Newtown Road. The buildings most likely date from around 1830 and pre-date the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834–5, appearing also in the Townland Valuation of 1836. They were built by local man John McParland. Although they retain traditional form and detailing in a village setting, insufficient historic fabric survives to merit listed status.

ARCHITECTURE

The pair abut a taller two-storey block to the right. The roof is natural slate with clay ridge tiles, cement coping, and cast-iron rainwater goods. There are two centrally ridge-mounted chimney stacks towards the right and a smooth rendered chimney on the left-hand gable. Concrete cills are present throughout.

The left-hand gable has painted long-and-short quoins. At the centre of the front elevation, a full-height elliptically curved archway physically divides both properties at ground floor level. It has a painted quoin surround and is fitted with full-height vertically sheeted solid timber gates.

Number 33 (left-hand dwelling): At ground floor, immediately to the left of the central archway, there is a painted wooden six-panelled slim double door with a narrow fanlight above, beyond which is a large mahogany-framed window with two top-hung opening lights. A smooth rendered painted plinth runs beneath. At first floor, a two-over-two painted timber sliding sash window sits centrally above the ground floor openings, with a one-over-two top-hung painted timber window immediately to the right of centre above the arch.

Number 31 (right-hand dwelling): At first floor there are two equally spaced one-over-one painted sliding sash windows, replicated at ground floor, with the right-hand ground floor window reduced in size. To the right of this reduced window is a painted timber panelled door with a glazed light in its upper half.

The rear elevation is rough rubble walling with a roof matching the front. Both dwellings have single-storey rear extensions at their outer extremities, with vehicular access through the central archway. Number 31 has two small top-hung uPVC windows on a masonry painted wall and profiled metal roofing on the rear return. To the rear of Number 33, ivy obscures a first-floor two-over-two painted sliding sash window, with a smaller one-over-one sliding sash at mid-level immediately to the right of the archway; the rear return has profiled roof sheeting, possibly asbestos. The southwest gable elevation is completely overgrown with ivy.

Materials summary: walling is random rubblestone with rendered plasterwork; roofing is natural slate and corrugated sheeting; windows are timber-framed and uPVC; rainwater goods are cast iron.

HISTORY

The village of Camlough began to develop in the late 18th century in connection with the linen industry. A patent was granted to the Earl of Charlemont in 1830 for a market on the third Monday of each month. By the late 1830s the Ordnance Survey memoirs describe the hamlet as having sixteen two-storey slated houses.

The Townland Valuation of 1836 records both dwellings in detail. Number 31, then occupied by John McParland himself — identified as the builder of the pair — was a two-storey dwelling 23½ feet in width, including a room over the carriage entrance 7 feet in width and a single-storey rear extension. It received the quality mark 1A–, indicating a slated building of ordinary finish. It was subsequently let to a tenant named E. Nugent and valued at £6 4s. Number 33 was a smaller two-storey dwelling 21 feet in width, whose occupier Peter Haughey had been living there for two years but whose house and yard were recorded as "not finished", suggesting recent construction. Its quality mark of 1B+ nonetheless indicated a building in sound order and good repair. Number 33 did not reach the £3 threshold for valuation.

In 1853 the McParland family sold both properties to Hugh Cosgrove, a local publican from a neighbouring house, who purchased them by mortgage — a circumstance that later complicated his family's title to the buildings. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1862, Number 31 was occupied by William Dougherty, with the house, outbuildings, yard and small garden valued at £7 and a yearly rent of £10. Number 33 was occupied by John Hunter, valued at £2 15s with a yearly rent of £3 17s. Both were "at will" tenants leasing from Cosgrove.

Hugh Cosgrove died in 1870, leaving the properties to his brother Henry Cosgrove. Henry died intestate in 1878, passing the properties to his widow Sarah Anne Cosgrove. Sarah Anne had been separated from her husband for approximately twenty years and had been supporting herself through employment at the Bessbrook Mills before being forced, likely through illness, to enter the Newry workhouse shortly before Henry's death. Henry had been compelled by the Guardians to maintain her so she could leave the workhouse, but claimed to have no property, asserting it was all held by the Landed Estates Court — apparently a consequence of the mortgage from his brother's time. A subsequent legal dispute between Sarah Anne Cosgrove and Michael Murphy, a publican colleague of Hugh Cosgrove's who had been a neighbouring occupant, over possession of some of Henry's former property, was reported in the newspapers.

A forge was added to the valuation of Number 31 sometime between 1866 and 1879, and a large outbuilding is shown to the rear of the dwellings on both the first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps, which may have housed it. The forge was short-lived, however, and was struck out of the valuation records in 1883. The outbuilding had gone by the time of the third edition map of 1906. Around 1880, coinciding with the removal of the forge, Number 31 was divided into two separate dwellings valued at £2 and £2 15s respectively, with a succession of tenants through the 1880s and 1890s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey map shows a long rear extension to Number 31, aligned with the northeast plot boundary, which is still present, and may have been added around this same time.

Michael Murphy moved into Number 33 in 1879, leasing from Sarah Anne Cosgrove — possibly as a result of settling the earlier property dispute between them — while the larger Number 31 was leased by Mark Toal "and others" from 1871. In 1890 all three dwellings passed from the Cosgrove family to Thomas Rafferty, a publican who had occupied the two neighbouring houses since 1880. Rafferty purchased the properties for £700 in 1889 but was again drawn into legal disputes when Sarah Anne Cosgrove and her son refused to recognise his title, requiring him to seek a court decree for possession. His ownership was short-lived: in 1899 the houses were purchased by James McKnight, finally severing the connection with the neighbouring public house, which thereafter remained in separate ownership.

By the 1901 census, Number 33 was occupied by 49-year-old Irish speaker Mary Ann Murphy — possibly a relative of Michael Murphy — together with her sons Charles (24) and Michael (14), described as victuallers, and her daughter Rose, then at school. This suggests Number 33 was operating as a grocery shop at this time, a use confirmed by a historic photograph from the early-to-mid 20th century, though the change was not formally recorded in valuation records until later. Number 31 housed two separate households: 60-year-old widow Catherine Turley, her son (a flax dresser), and her two daughters (employed as a winder in a linen mill and a linen weaver), most likely working at the nearby Doyle family flax mill leased from the Richardsons of Bessbrook and/or at the much larger mill at Bessbrook, one and a half miles away; and Armagh native James Henry, an agricultural labourer, his wife, and three young sons, two of whom had been born in Scotland. A 1904 newspaper report records how Catherine Turley and Mrs Henry kept hens in the rear yard, shared between all three houses, and that Catherine successfully won compensation in the magistrates' court after a bailiff arriving to seize the hens in settlement of a debt assaulted her.

By the 1911 census the Turleys and Henrys remained at Number 31, each household occupying three rooms. The Turleys' employment in the linen industry had ended — Michael Turley was by then a farm labourer and his sister was unemployed. Number 33 was now occupied by Minnie (also known as Mary) Smyth and her niece Rose McKeown, who ran the shop within the five-room house. Sanitary improvements to the dwellings of Mrs Turley and Minnie Smyth were recommended by Newry No. 2 Rural District Council in 1912.

In December 1920, the buildings became directly caught up in the Irish War of Independence — a guerrilla conflict of 1919–21 that had a significant impact in the area about to become the border region, with at least 160 violent deaths in the border counties during this period. On the night of 12th/13th December 1920, in an episode later known as the "Camlough Burnings" or, by Republicans, as Black December or Nollaig Dhubh, the Newry Brigade of the IRA attempted to set fire to Camlough RIC barracks, which stood directly beside the current dwellings. The garrison set off flares to summon assistance, and a rescue party of military and police sent from Newry was ambushed at the Egyptian Arch with resulting loss of life. On arriving in Camlough, the military and police set fire to several buildings including the Sinn Féin Hall and a number of shops and licensed premises. A contemporary IRA participant, Jack McElhaw, later confirmed in a statement that a small number of IRA men had been positioned along the side of the barracks, behind a low wall — possibly the garden of Number 33. In January 1921, claims totalling £40,656 were entered at the Ballybot Quarter Sessions, including a claim of £2,000 by landlord James McKnight for the destruction by fire of Number 33 and partial destruction of Number 31, and a further claim of £164 2s by Michael Turley for destroyed furniture, two goats, and one dozen hens. Michael Smyth, Mary Smyth's brother, claimed £1,000 for destroyed groceries, stock-in-trade, household furniture, effects and fittings.

At the subsequent hearing, Mary Smyth testified that she carried on a restaurant and grocery business in the house, assisted by her niece, and that a few hours after the barracks attack the military visited and smashed the shop and kitchen, followed by the Special Constabulary who presented revolvers and rifles at them. The house was doused in petrol and set on fire. The military and Special Constabulary alleged that the house had been "loopholed" on its side wall to enable firing on the barracks and that bombs had been thrown from the rear of Smyth's and Turley's houses. McKnight and Smyth pursued compensation claims against Armagh County Council for over a year through the courts, the cases ultimately reaching the highest court in Ireland. After an initial County Court decree in their favour was reversed at the spring assizes in Armagh, the original judgment was reaffirmed by the Southern Court of Appeal. The case then went to the High Court of Appeal at the Four Courts in Dublin, where the Lord Chancellor ruled that peace officers were justified in causing any damage necessary to suppress breaches of the peace, that the injury to the applicants was not deemed criminal, and that they were therefore not entitled to compensation — with costs awarded against them.

Number 33 was designated a ruin in 1922. In 1929 it was taken over by Bernard McConnon, the valuation was raised to £8, and the building appears to have been rebuilt at this time. The description "shop" appears formally in the valuation records for the first time. The 1933 revaluation records the dwelling as comprising a shop (selling "sweets etc"), kitchen, scullery and three bedrooms, with no separate access to the shop — it was necessary to pass through the shop to reach the living accommodation. A plan and dimensions show the shop and house extending over the carriage entrance, with a small corrugated iron-roofed rear extension. One of the slated rubble masonry outbuildings to the rear of Number 31 actually belonged to Number 33, and there was also a corrugated iron earth closet at the end of the rear yard. The landlord Mary McKnight unsuccessfully appealed the valuation in 1935, stating that Number 33 had been rebuilt to the same size as before the burning — when the valuation had been lower — and noting that she had "only these three houses to get a living from". The house was described as a terrace parlour house in good order, with cement and tiled floors, boarded ceilings, and a stove in the kitchen; the comfortable sitting room had been converted to a small shop, and it was said to be in fairly new condition, having been rebuilt in 1926.

After approximately three decades' residence, the Turley family's connection with Number 31 ended when landlord Mary McKnight issued a summons for possession following rent arrears in 1931. Michael Turley had fallen behind on the 3s-per-week rent, building up arrears of £8 5s 6d; although the Turleys asked for time to pay, a decree for possession was issued and they appear to have been subsequently evicted. Number 31 was thereafter let to Thomas Rooney and then Margaret Brannigan up to 1957. The First General Revaluation records it as still divided into two dwellings: the left-hand part comprising a reception, kitchen, scullery and two bedrooms in fairly good repair, built of rubble masonry, concrete and slate, described as a "good terrace kitchen house" (though it appears actually to have had a parlour), with a tiled kitchen with stove, boarded ceilings, and a small reception with boarded floor and no grate; the right-hand part comprising a kitchen, scullery and two bedrooms, similar to its neighbour but smaller and of rather better finish. From around 1950 the landlord of all three properties was Margaret Sebranek.

A historic photograph dating from around 1920–40 shows that there was formerly an additional entrance door to the right of the carriage archway that has since been blocked up. Between 1956 and 1971, a large extension was added to the rear of Number 33, and further extensions have been added to both dwellings since the 1970s. The police barracks formerly located to the west of the dwellings became a youth hostel between 1956 and 1971 and has since been demolished.

SETTING

The dwellings occupy the northwest side of Main Street, bookending the meandering terrace of buildings that define the street, with the Camlough River immediately beyond flowing southward under Newtown Road.