Main pic: Drimarone Parochial House. Image: Google Maps.
Permission is being sought to demolish a historic south Donegal parochial house.
Fr James Sweeney has lodged a planning application to Donegal County Council seeking to raze the derelict house and sheds at Drimarone, Letterbarrow.
The stone two-storey house was built more than 100 years ago.
However, according to planning documents from the priest’s architects, the building is in an ‘extremely poor state’ internally and several areas are ‘in a state of collapse’.
“It is now a very dangerous structure internally, hence the external safety fencing,” they stated.
“Refurbishment of this building would be prohibitive cost-wise. It would need to be stripped back to the stone and brick walls before restoration,” they added.
“Building a new house providing the same accommodation would be a much more economic option. As we said previously this house has not been occupied for the last 15 years approximately. It is not in a habitable state now.”
Drimarone Church and Parochial House (extreme left) taken between 1922 and 1925 by the then Rev TR Griffith.