HERITAGE AT ENNISCOE
Enniscoe House and Courtyard |
At the heart of the Enniscoe Estate is the big house and linked yards behind it. At one time the family would have owned several thousand acres, now there is less than two hundred. However this is enough to give good protection to the house with wonderful views over Lough Conn to the front and parkland and woodland around the other sides. Enniscoe House is one of Ireland’s listed heritage houses and has been described as “the last surviving Great House in North Mayo”. The first of the family to come onto the lands of Enniscoe in the17th century was Francis Jackson. It was probably his son, Oliver, who built the first house, described as “a fortified house on the shores of Lough Conn”. This house has long disappeared and there is no record of its exact location. The second house is still to be seen today, built sometime between 1740 and 1750 it forms the back part of the present day Enniscoe House. In the 1790’s George Jackson, great grandson of Francis, built on an addition to the second house, turning it from a tall and narrow farm house to the square two story Georgian mansion house that we see today. All the interior plaster work was completed by 1800. George also extended the yards behind the house and made many improvements to the estate. In 1834 his great granddaughter, Madeline Jackson, married Mervyn Pratt of Cabra Castle in County Cavan and together the young couple took over the management of the estate. There followed difficult years, with much local distress caused by the famine. The Pratts were never absentee landlords and by the early 1900’s Mervyn and his son Joe had sold all tenanted land under the land acts, keeping only the domain lands around the house. Joe Pratt’s son, also Mervyn, lived quietly at Enniscoe, farming,
gardening and fishing. Mervyn never married and at his death in
1950 the property went to his cousin, Professor Jack Nicholson. |