Castle Harrison, Great house near Ballyhea and Charleville, Ireland.
Castle Harrison was a great house near Ballyhea and Charleville in north County Cork, built on or near the site of the earlier Castle Dodd of the Fitzgerald family. It was the seat of the Harrison family, and its great hall held artefacts unearthed on the estate during construction of a nearby railway line. The house was demolished in the 1950s.
A "Castle Dodd" of the Fitzgerald family appears on a 1736 map of north County Cork; Samuel Lewis held that Castle Harrison grew from or on the site of that earlier structure. By 1837 Standish Harrison occupied the house. Five sisters inherited it in 1951, and the estate was sold to the Irish Land Commission in 1956 before the house was demolished.
The Harrison family maintained detailed genealogical records tracing their lineage back to Richard, Lord Harrisson, who arrived in England in 1056.
Nothing of the house survives above ground, so the site near Ballyhea and Charleville can only be traced through the 1736 map of north County Cork, Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland and the Irish Tourist Association Survey of the 1940s. The Harrison vault at Aglishdrinagh Churchyard, built by Henry Harrison, Commissioner of Customs around 1710, is the surviving built trace to look for.
During railway construction near the estate, workers discovered numerous historical artifacts that revealed details about early settlement patterns in the area. These finds helped archaeologists better understand how people had lived in this region over time.
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