Mount Leader House,

Co. Cork.

Documenting our Heritage

Mount Leader was the long-time seat of the Leader family. The present now abandoned six bay, two storey Georgian house is believed to have been built in 1833 to replace an earlier structure.

The Leaders had established themselves in Millstreet in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when two brothers, Henry and John, purchased large estate here. The elder brother, Henry, located himself here at Mount Leader.

The descendants of the brothers prospered and by 1876 owned almost twelve thousand hectares in County Cork in fourteen separate holdings. Among their possessions were the extensive and valuable collieries at Dromagh and Dysert which provided employment to many people for over a century.

The Leaders remained at Mount Leader until the end of the nineteenth century when the property when the property was sold to the Pomeroys. The last occupant of the house was Jerome Pomeroy who lived at Mount Leader until the early 1970s.