Abandoned Ireland

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From Big Houses to humble cottages, schools to prisons, churches to dance halls, these buildings may now be abandoned, but they are far from empty. Abandoned Ireland is packed with beautiful, evocative pictures of neglected buildings which now serve as crumbling time capsules of days past. When I first saw Cairndhu I couldn’t believe we had a property like this in Northern Ireland and that I’d never seen or heard of it. An ancient island with a romantic history and lush green landscape, Ireland's culture stretches back to the time of St Patrick and the first Christian monks and includes the Norman invasion, clan wars, mass emigration and partition in the early 20th century. The corrugated-iron structures, Connolly says 'were an addition to the 18th-century Fort Dunree, which was built after revolutionary Wolfe Tone had tried to land with a French fleet at nearby Lough Swilly, in his attempt to end British rule'.

Another common sight would be dwellings with religious symbols and pictures on the walls, bibles, and bottles of holy water on mantelpieces. I, which now has almost 50,000 followers – a clear indicator of how these images exert such a hold on the collective imagination.Abandoned Ireland begins its story at Cairndhu, a mansion on the dramatic Antrim coast road north of Larne. On the other hand, you can find a grand mansion, and imagine that it’s full of crumbling antique furniture and the walls decorated with peeling artwork… only to find an empty shell on the inside. Here, photographer Rebecca Brownlie explains how a fascination for seeking out haunted houses evolved into an ongoing quest to document decaying dwellings and their often fascinating histories. Brownlie’s interest in abandoned buildings began some 10 years ago, when she worked with a paranormal group, scouting locations for investigations, but her fascination with the supernatural was honed in childhood by her mum’s stories of the eerie Gill Hall Estate nearby in Dromore, Co Down.

The workhouses and prisons in Ireland at that time were suffering from overcrowding, which forced them to offload some of their more troublesome inmates to asylums, which meant that many of the patients did not actually need psychiatric care and were there for living purposes only, but it was against the law to refuse entry to anyone. During this time I uncovered that the house had begun as a country mansion and was used as a summer residence and had belonged to Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon from Belfast. It was while peeling back the layers of this house and photographing its state of raw dereliction that I found I was more interested in the history of these buildings and people who lived in them than the paranormal. Entertainment Co Down photographer Rebecca Brownlie on peeling back 'hidden layers' in Abandoned Ireland New book Abandoned Ireland is packed with beautiful, evocative pictures of neglected buildings which now serve as crumbling time capsules of days past.These busy years faded with the austerity of war, and the property gradually declined and was sold to the State, which failed to care adequately for the house. A journalist for more than two decades, Dominic Connolly was for many years Arts Editor of The Mail on Sunday.

Abandoned Ireland is a visually stunning book with images that are bleakly beautifully, eliciting goosebumps, nostalgia and wonder, for there is something compelling about decaying buildings, particularly ones that were once magnificent - the grandeur still apparent amongst the decay and cobwebs, like Miss Havisham’s house. BAD EDDIE, BUNBEG, COUNTY DONEGAL: The remains of this fishing boat can be seen from the derelict Ostan Gweedore hotel that overlooks the waters, Connolly says. Abandoned Ireland travels the length and breadth of the island of Ireland visiting and documenting our forgotten buildings, highlighting their social importance, and bringing their stories back to life through the medium of photography.LACKEEN CASTLE, COUNTY TIPPERARY: Connolly says: 'When this medieval tower house was rebuilt in the 16th century, the Stowe Missal was found, an illuminated mass book dating from seven centuries earlier. Below you'll find 16 abandoned sites on the island of Ireland that appear in the tome, with caption information courtesy of the author. DERELICT COTTAGE, WATERVILLE, COUNTRY KERRY: Connolly says there are many derelict cottages across Ireland, which shows 'signs of rural depopulation, as people have been attracted elsewhere by better prospects than living off the land'. There is nothing particularly special of the content- it exists everywhere and others have been photographing it for decades.

One of the tourists is Evan, taking an enforced holiday from his family and work in Belfast after breaking down after the death of his daughter in infancy. It’s made her passionate about trying to save, or at least document, our abandoned buildings before they’re destroyed or altered. Bursting with engaging and often surprising details, each haunting photograph is an invitation to immerse yourself in history, and an Ireland long gone.Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. When I got home and started editing, I noticed something in the glass door that I hadn’t noticed at the time. Today, remnants of the country’s heritage can be found in every corner of this fascinating land, from the thinly inhabited west coast to the modern, populated areas of Leinster. I’ve gone into houses in the snow and they’ve been as warm as if the fire was on, and you can feel the warmth and the welcome of the people who lived there.