Raheens House,

Mayo.

Documenting our Heritage

The original Raheens estate consisted of over 1000 acres and was the residence of the Brownes who took over the estate at the time of the Cromwellian Plantations (1652-1660) in return for a favour. The local folklore suggests that Cromwell gave the estate to one of his soldiers who did not fancy it and he offered it to anyone who would give him a horse. The tale goes on to say that a soldier named Browne gave him an old white horse and  received the estate in return.

The original house was surrounded by a moat and four bastions. At the time of the Act of the Union (1800) Dodwell Browne owned the estate. Dodwell was married twice - first to Elizabeth Cuffe, daughter of James Cuffe of Ballinrobe. Elizabeth died on 13th March 1777 aged 44 years. Dodwell then married Maria O Donel (a Catholic), daughter of Sir Nial O Donel of Newport.

Some years after her marriage Maria became ill and was taken to Dublin for medical attention. According to local superstition, as Maria started her journey a strange thing happened - the horses drawing her carriage shied at a bend a short distance from Raheens House and refused to pass. The carriage driver repeatedly whipped them and after some time succeeded in forcing them to continue. Maria reached Dublin but died shortly afterwards.

In 1809 her husband Dodwell erected an obelisk on the estate in her memory.

Dodwell, thinking that the incident with the horses was an omen, had the monument built beside the spot where the event occurred.

The monument is a fine imposing structure about 25 metres in height and topped with an ornamental globe carved out of local limestone. On a polished slab there is an epitaph in English and in Irish.

The Irish version, written in ‘cramped Irish’ reads:

SIORD THU DOD CUIMHNE MíCARA O MO MUIRNIN DILIS DíIMTHIGH COIDHCHE DO LAITHIR GO BRATH A IARADH UIRM.

Losely translated as: ‘This is to your memory my friend. Oh my loyal beloved, gone forever, your presence forever missing from me (lost to me)’

The English inscription reads: ‘This cenotaph was built in memory of Maria Browne O Donel, second daughter of Sir Neal O Donel.’

There is another smaller slab inscribed in french: ‘A Marie Et A L’Amour Par Son Cherrepoux Dodwell, 1809’

Translation - 'To Maria, and to love, from her dear husband Dodwell 1809’

Higher up is a round slab bearing the night profile of a beautiful woman, and the following epitaph in relief ‘Maria O Donel Browne’. On the opposite side of the obelisk is the inscription ‘To Gaiety and Innocence’.

Dodwell Browne died in the 1830s and his son Henry Browne took over the estate. Henry planted trees along the entrance avenue and put much of the wasteland in the demesne under forestry. During the Famine in 1847 the original house was demolished and the present house built - the stables were retained and the kitchens of the original mansion incorporated into the new house. Local peasants were used for cheap labour, paying them as little as four pence per day. Henry Browne had no sympathy for the peasants who were starving and dying and went as far as depriving them of drinking water. The burden of all the construction work left him with no choice other than to mortgage the estate. He became ill and on his death his brother Neil became owner in 1870.

Neill Browne did not run the estate for very long and passed it on to his son, Dodwell, who was popularly known as ‘The Judge’. Dodwell had spent 34 years in colonial service in Ceylon where he served some time at the Bar and the remainder as a High Court Judge. He returned from Ceylon in 1905.

This Dodwell Browne was unsympathetic to the cause of home rule and strongly opposed Sinn Fein and the IRA. Under his ownership the estate was divided up and given to local farmers under the Compulsory Tillage Act. In return he was paid a yearly rent.

Dodwell had 3 sons: Dodwell, Keppel and O Donnell and a daughter Lucy. Keppel died as a young boy. Dodwell and O Donnell were educated at Trinity College. O Donnell became a doctor and took up practice in Naas, Co. Kildare while Dodwell moved to Australia where he also practised medicine.

On his fathers death in 1920 Dodwell became owner of the estate but returned to Australia in 1923. Lucy joined him in Australia following the death of her mother in 1932.

In 1933 the furniture, fixtures and fittings of the house were sold. The place was allowed to become derelict as Dodwell did not pay wages to his workers or pay rent and rates on the property. In 1941 a Mr. Mc Kenna purchased the estate from the land commission.

Raheen house lay abandoned and derelict for decades but is now in the early stages of restoration! :)