The Use of Local Stone

'The characteristic building material of the town is excellent local stone. This is a hard grey limestone, less gritty and obstinate than Mourne granite, but of equally good colour and wearing quality. The earlier buildings are mostly of stone from the very fine quarry near Milltown bridge, the later ones including the cathedral, from the quarry (now water-logged) near Old Cross Square, just beyond the former gasworks' (Brett 1970).

Both the courthouse and the market house are fine examples of the use of local stone within Monaghan town.

The Courthouse

The Courthouse, built in 1829 of stone from the local mountain quarry at Eshnaglogh, is a handsome modern building of hewn stone, containing spacious courtrooms and all requisite offices, and in every respect well suited to its purpose. It as a handsome, if rather heavy, courthouse built of unusually large blocks of well dressed yellowish stone.

The pediment is carried on half-fluted Doric columns in antis, and on it is a variant on the Hanoverian coat-of-arms. The lion and the unicorn are carved with "uncommon crispness and vigour". (Brett 1970)

A detached, five-bay, two-storey over basement courthouse, designed by Joseph Welland and built c.1830, the central block has a three-bay engaged portico with two Greek Doric columns in antis and a coat of arms in the pediment.

The building, set on a plinth with steps up to the entrance and facing the square, has a hipped slate roof behind a parapet. The walls are of rusticated granite on the ground floor below two stringcourses, andof ashlar granite on the first floor of the façade.

There are nine over nine pane timber sash windows at the front, timber sash windows at the rear and sides, and multiple pane timber sash windows on the left of the building. At the rear and sides of the building are timber panelled doors with Gibbsian surrounds (Dunne&Phillips 1999).

The Market House

Monaghan, was built in 1792 for General Cunninghame to designs by Colonel Samuel Hayes, the distinguished amateur architect and silviculturalist. 'A very handsome and new market house… built by the late General Cunninghame, whose arms are elegantly emblazoned over the entrance' wrote Sir Charles Coote in 1801.

It is indeed an uncommonly elegant little building, of the local grey limestone, with all its arches still unblocked. The carving and the stonework are of uncommon delicacy and clarity. At each end, a pediment surmounts a tall, rusticated central arch flanked by round-headed niches.

The western pediment contains the date 1792, and the Cunninghame coat of arms, framed in sprays of oak leaves with oak apples. The pediment in the east end contains an inscription in an oval medallion, framed in laurel, 'dedicated to the convenience of the inhabitants of Monaghan by the Rt. Hon. Lieut. Gen. Robert Cunninghame 1792 S.H of Avondale Del.' The building was used as a market house and a seeds man's store. (Extract from 'Court Houses and Market Houses of the province of Ulster' by C.E.B Brett (1973) ).

The Market House has recently been refurbished and now functions as a gallery and music venue (www.themarkethouse.ie)