A House With a Family History Featuring on The Great House Revival Tonight on RTÉ One at 9:30pm.
The absorbing RTÉ One, Sunday night (9:30pm) programme The Great House Revival brings us closer than ever to home tonight.
To a project, a house, a home a proud Knocknagoshel man Kieran Cotter has saved from certain oblivion with a long and loving process of restoration.
With guidance from TV architect Hugh Wallace, Kieran will open the doors on the results of several years of hard work and, probably many more of planning and saving with that raft of work in mind.
The End of a Long Botharín
Kieran has renovated his grandmother’s old cottage on an old style farmyard at the end of a long, narrow botharín in the heart of the townland of Toureenard.
For tonight’s TV programme the property has been described as a traditional stone farm cottage that has been empty since Kieran’s grandmother passed away 13 years ago.
During a working trip out there while the project was at an advanced stage – with lots more to do – in February 2024 I couldn’t help feeling that this was one lucky old house as Kieran’s sense of determination was palpable.
A Lucky Old House
A lucky old house because there are so many sad examples of its one-ages scattered throughout an increasingly abandoned Irish countryside today.
In tonight’s programme Kieran will deal with budgetary issues and obstacles to progress. These are fairly typical of the kind encountered in the series which are often dissolved with an avuncular, encouraging, kind and sound advice from the presenter.
Soon after my February 2024 Tooreenard visit and the photographs from it and an article by Stephen Fernane appeared in The Kerryman I got a call to say that the origins of the Nolan families of Church Street here in Castleisland are all rooted in that house and its general area of Toureenard.
Happy Memories from 1938 to 1958
Then Church Street native Scartaglen resident, Helena Nolan-Moran and her cousin Sr. Teresa Nolan in the UK who correspond regularly revealed more.
Sr. Teresa, who at 93½ and a half at the time of writing in 2024, said that she has many happy memories of living in that house from 1938 to 1958 – when she entered religious life in England.
The happy memories also take in the many summer holidays there annually up to the year 2000.
“Now in 2024 at the age of 93½ years, I am blessed by God with exceptionally good health. I am very active by beginning my day with a 45-minute walk in our local woods in Pinner.
Holidays to Kerry – Pilgrimages to Knock
“I use public transport to travel to Co. Kerry for my annual holidays, for pilgrimages to Knock and Lourdes and for visits to parts of England and Scotland. I worked full-time as a Parish Sister in Scotland until the age of 88 years.
“Having been a teacher from the age of 20 years, I am now weekly involved in teaching English to refugees from South America and Hong Kong.”
Sr. Teresa also wrote a book on her life in Tooreenard and, afterwards, on her travels but this remains private to the Nolan family.
Relative Food Security in War Time
In excerpts send to me, Sr. Teresa describes the deprivation in Ireland during World War II and the relative food security of living on a rural farm in Co. Kerry.
“Fortunately, for us children living on a farm where we produced potatoes, various vegetables, apples in our orchard, fruit trees, hen, duck and goose eggs.
It gave us a wonderful sense of security and surplus food was taken to O’Connor’s shop in Knocknagoshel and exchanged for groceries and general supplies,” said Sr.Teresa.
Gone the Extra Mile and More
Sr. Teresa Nolan must be delighted to find that the home that holds so many happy memories for her is now in the hands of a young man who has gone the extra mile and more in making sure that it faces the future with the kind of certainty that it provided for those it sheltered for all those years chronicled by Sr. Teresa.
Her book will surely find its way onto Kieran’s shelves and, like its author, a good home in Toureenard.
Good luck and God bless to all who darken its doors into the future. Arise Knocknagoshel……….
See more on RTÉ One tonight from 9:30pm on The Great House Revival.
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