Castleblayney Town Hall () is a municipal building in the Market Square at

Castleblayney Castleblayney (; ) is a town in County Monaghan, Ireland. The town had a population of 3,926 as of the 2022 census. Castleblayney is near the border with County Armagh in Northern Ireland, and lies on the N2 road from Dublin to Derry and L ...

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of Border Region, Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town ...

, Ireland. It has served as a market house, as a town hall and as a courthouse, but is currently disused and standing derelict.

History

The building was commissioned as a market house for the town by

Andrew Blayney, 11th Baron Blayney Lieutenant General Andrew Thomas Blayney, 11th Baron Blayney (30 November 1770 – 8 April 1834), was an Anglo-Irish peer. He ruled the Blayney estate at Castleblayney, County Monaghan, for fifty years from 1784 to 1834. As commanding officer o ...

, whose seat was at

Blayney Castle Hope Castle is a historic house and demesne in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Ireland. Originally a private home, over the course of the 20th century, Hope Castle was used as a military barracks, a hospital, convent, and was most recently used ...

, and was intended to support the local linen trade. The site he selected was an elevated location in the centre of the Market Square. It was designed in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

with a

cement render Cement render or cement plaster is the application of a mortar mix of sand and cement, (optionally lime) and water to brick, concrete, stone, or mud brick. It is often textured, colored, or painted after application. It is generally used on ...

finish and was completed in its original form around 1790. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of eight bays facing southwest onto the Market Square. The central section of four bays featured a

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

with four round headed openings on the ground floor, and four

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s behind a parapet and a large recess on the first floor. The end sections of two bays each, which were slightly projected forward, were fenestrated by slightly recessed round headed windows on the ground floor and by sash windows with

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s on the first floor. The rear elevation of the building, which was accessed further down the slope of the hill, incorporated a basement floor which was arcaded, so that markets could be held, and was unrendered. At roof level, there was a

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

-shaped

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

at the northwest end of the building. Internally, the principal room was a large assembly room on the first floor. A three-bay courthouse extension, which was projected outward at the rear of the building, was added in 1856. After the

town commissioners Town commissioners were elected local government bodies that existed in urban areas in Ireland from the 19th century until 2002. Larger towns with commissioners were converted to urban districts by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, wit ...

were replaced by an

urban district council In England and Wales, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. ...

in 1899, the new council adopted the building as its meeting place. The council continued to operate from the building until the late 20th century, when it relocated to offices in Main Street.

Monaghan County Council Monaghan County Council () is the local authority of County Monaghan, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housing and community, roads and transportation, urban planning ...

then condemned the building as unsafe and local hearings of the

district court District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations, some call them "small case court" usually as the lowest level of the hierarchy. These courts generally work under a higher court which exercises control over the lower co ...

and of the

circuit court Circuit courts are court systems in several common law jurisdictions. It may refer to: * Courts that literally sit 'on circuit', i.e., judges move around a region or country to different towns or cities where they will hear cases; * Courts that s ...

were relocated to Hope Castle in 1997. A statue of the country singer, Tom McBride, was unveiled at the back of the building by

President of Ireland The president of Ireland () is the head of state of Republic of Ireland, Ireland and the supreme commander of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Irish Defence Forces. The presidency is a predominantly figurehead, ceremonial institution, serving as ...

Michael D. Higgins Michael Daniel Higgins (; born 18 April 1941) is an Irish politician, poet, broadcaster, and sociologist who has been serving as the president of Ireland since 2011. Entering national politics through the Labour Party, he served as a senator ...

, in September 2018.

Deterioration

After the collapse of an internal wall in 2019, Monaghan County Council instructed contractors to stabilise the exterior walls and to remove the partially collapsed roof. In April 2023, Monaghan County Council commissioned DHB Architects to prepare design proposals for the refurbishment of the building.

References

{{City and town halls in Ireland, state=collapsed City and town halls in the Republic of Ireland Government buildings completed in 1790 Castleblayney Courthouses in the Republic of Ireland