house, PORT (DUNFANAGHY) · NIAH 40901513

An attractive and well-maintained vernacular house that was recently sensitively restored. It retains its early form and character, despite these recent alterations, and is an instantly appealing feature in the scenic landscape to the south of Dunfanaghy. Its visual appeal is enhanced by the retention of much of its salient fabric including the timber sliding sash windows. Modest in scale, it exhibits the simple and functional form of vernacular building in Ireland. Of particular interest in the survival of the graded Roshine slate roof, which helps to give this building a charming picturesque appeal. Roshine slate is a locally-quarried schist that was commonly used as a roofing material, and for general construction, in the Dunfanaghy area in the nineteenth century. The number of Roshine schist slate roofs in North Donegal and the Dunfanaghy region is steadily dropping, and the number of surviving two-storey schist roof buildings is rarer still, which makes this particular example at Port an important survival. This building is indicated on the Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map of c. 1837; the attached outbuildings are not indicated until 1903 (Ordnance Survey twenty-five inch map). It is possible that this was originally a single-storey structure with the upper floor added during the second half of the nineteenth century, a feature of some vernacular houses in Ireland. The porch is a later addition, perhaps added c. 1900. The location of the chimneystacks and the position of the doorway suggests that this building is of the ‘direct entry’ type that is characteristic of the vernacular tradition in north-west Ireland. This house is one of the better surviving examples of its type in Donegal, and is an important element of the built heritage of the county. The attached outbuildings have been recently rebuilt but retain the character of the building; unusually, the form and scale of these outbuildings almost lend this vernacular structure a vaguely classical architectural arrangement.