Rookwood House is situated about a mile and a half from the town of Athleague, on the Galway side of the border with Roscommon. The name seems to be an artificial one since it’s original name Bellagad or Ballygad, from the Irish “beal atha gad”, meaning the mouth of the ford of the osiers, has nothing to do with the name Rookwood. The house was originally owned by Edmond, Donagh Mac Ffarriagh O’Kelly in 1641. It was granted to Sir Edward Ormsby during the seventeenth- century confiscations. Major Robert Waller, husband of Jane Ormsby, owned the house in 1778. Edmund Kelly purchased the property in 1800.

Rookwood House was a magnificent late Georgian fifty-room mansion. Of beautiful proportions, it was a three story, three bay cut stone rendered, ashlar-angled house over a basement, with a two storey domestic quarters at the rear. At the front was a portico of four graceful Ionic columns. The central bay was surmounted by a plain pediment, and a flight of stone steps led up to the front door, to which a long winding avenue swept from the road. As with so many of Irelands historic houses Rookwood was vacated in 1940, gradually became derelict and was demolished in 1941/42.

(The above notes have been taken from the book “The Strange Story of Sarah Kelly”, by Vera Hughes.)

For info on the nearby village of Athleague click here