The ruin is all that remains of a substantial country house, five bays wide, three storeys over a basement, built on elevated ground that was presumably chosen as much for the view northward across the lake as for any practical reason. What gives the place its particular atmosphere is the combination of architectural ambition and violent end: a carefully designed house, well over a century in the making of its reputation, reduced to a roofless carcass in 1923.

George Moore had the house built between 1792 and 1795, commissioning the Waterford architect John Roberts to design it. Roberts was a significant figure in late eighteenth-century Irish architecture, responsible for both of Waterford's cathedrals, and his involvement here suggests Moore was not simply putting up a functional residence. The house that resulted was a composed, formal structure in the Georgian manner. It stood for well over a century before being burnt down during the Civil War, the conflict that followed Irish independence and during which the destruction of big houses became, in certain areas, a deliberate act of political violence as much as an opportunistic one.

The site sits within forestry today, which shapes the approach and filters what you can see on arrival. The ruins are accessible on foot, and the elevated position means that gaps in the treeline still open onto Lough Carra below, giving some sense of how the house once related to its landscape.