Coppinger's Court,
County Cork

The striking silhouette of this ivy-clad ruin dominates Ballyvirine - a fertile and picturesque valley west of Rosscarbery. The stronghouse was built sometime after 1612 by Sir Walter Coppinger, whose vigorous desire to develop and modernise his estates brought him into conflict with traditional rural ways. He is therefore remembered, probably wrongly, as an awful despot who lorded it over the district, hanging anyone who disagreed with him from a gallows on a gable end of the Court. He planned to build a model village nearby, but these and other schemes foundered with the 1641 Rebellion, when the house was ransacked and partially burnt down. So impressive was this house that it was said to have had a window for every day of the year, a chimney for every week and a door for every month. Visitors often like to count them all!

3 km (2 miles) W of Rosscarbery. NGR: W 260358.

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