House - indeterminate date, Ardfarn, Co. Donegal
In the rolling countryside of Ardfarn, County Donegal, the faint traces of what was once Stone House have captured the attention of antiquarians and mapmakers for over a century.
House - indeterminate date, Ardfarn, Co. Donegal
The structure itself has long since vanished, leaving behind only its evocative name marked in antiquarian typeface on old Ordnance Survey maps. This tantalising notation first appeared during the OS 25-inch survey of 1905, when surveyors carefully documented the location where the house once stood, preserving its memory in cartographic form even as the physical building had already disappeared.
The exact date of Stone House remains a mystery, with no surviving records to tell us when it was built or who called it home. What we do know comes entirely from its appearance on that early 20th-century map, where the designation ‘site of’ tells its own story of absence and loss. The choice to record it in antiquarian typeface suggests the surveyors recognised they were documenting something already considered historical by 1905, a ghostly reminder of Donegal’s earlier architectural landscape.
Today, visitors to Ardfarn won’t find any visible remains of Stone House; instead, they’ll discover a patch of Irish countryside that holds its secrets close. The site serves as a reminder of how many buildings have slipped away from Ireland’s rural landscapes, known now only through the careful notations of Ordnance Survey mapmakers who understood the importance of recording what had been, not just what was. These phantom structures, marked only on maps, form an invisible heritage across the Irish countryside, waiting to spark the imagination of those who know where to look.