Rockingham House, Lough Key, Boyle: Then & Now Photoshop

I’ve been a regular visitor to Lough Key near Boyle Co. Roscommon from even before I moved to the Northwest of Ireland in 2003 and many times since then, including this afternoon for the first time in a good while when I decided to drop by in the rain to snap some photos of the remnants of the old Rockingham House Estate there which was destroyed by fire (for the second time) in 1957 then subsequently demolished, perhaps controversially considering it’s decent state, in 1971. The large foundations, still interspersed with servants tunnels and sprouting an ugly tower, which I initially thought reminiscent of something you’d see in Ballymun, Dublin, rather than in one of the great forest parks of Northwest Ireland is now a commercial tourist attraction.

I’d seen photos of the old house before but never really thought through what it must have looked like or where it stood or which direction it faced before until I seen another fairly hi-res and impressive colour photo of the house on Facebook recently. I decided to do some research, take some photos and Photoshop together how I thought it might have looked “Then Vs Now”, just to give anyone interested an idea..

Here are the results (CLICK)

Photo Gallery:

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Some further references on Rockingham House and accounts of it’s demise:

http://www.boyletoday.com/57-years-since-rockingham-fire/

http://thegardens.ie/?page_id=918

https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/buildings-database/rockingham-house-boyle