Coppinger's Court

Coppinger's Court lies in a field west of the town of Rosscarberry, in County Cork in Ireland.

Coppinger's Court is a fortified house built around 1616 by Sir Walter Coppinger. Coppinger apparently was a wealthy moneylender. The house was originally known as "Ballyverine Castle". Coppinger had plans to turn the immediate area into a new market town. These plans met with a lot of resistance from the locals and the town never came to be.

During the Irish Rebellion of 1641 the castle was ransacked and badly damaged by fire. Legend has it that before leaving to settle a dispute with a neighbor, Sir Walter Coppinger instructed his servants to set fire to his house if he didn't return by a certain time. Sir Walter won the dispute, but forgot his instructions, so when he arrived home late he found his house in flames. This obviously can't have happened, as Coppinger had already died in 1639.

Although Coppinger's brother; Dominic, took possession of the house, it was never rebuilt and fell to ruin over the following years. In 1698 it was purchased by the Beecher family and later disappeared from administrative records.

This stronghouse was built in the Elizabethan style when older, more military styled, tower houses and castles gave way to more comfortable residences. The house has a rectangular center flanked by two wings on the east and west, resulting in a total of 9 gables and was said to be one of the finest examples of fortified house in its day, and was said to have "a chimney for every month, a door for every week and a window for every day of the year".

Coppinger's Court can freely be visited. A very nice ruin.

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