Interesting folklore behind Kilrush’s Mary’s View

It is very likely that most people in Kilrush and surrounding parishes have never seen the inscription above Buggles public house in the town. The caption ‘Mary’s View’ is located on the town square side of Buggles, whose entrance is at the top of Moore Street.

Local folklore suggests that the old building was once higher than the Vandeleur landlord’s house in Kilrush wood. Those who lived in the house in the town centre therefore had a better view of the Shannon Estuary than the Vandeleur family had. The landlord family lived in Kilrush House, or what was sometimes referred to as the House in the Bog.
“It appears that people who built the house in the town centre had built on an extra story on top of it. The result was that they maintained that they had a better view of the estuary and the Kerry mountains than Vandeleur had,” Councillor Tom Prendeville explained.
As a result, the Vandeleurs ordered the removal of the top story of the house. Their own house, which was built in 1808, was accidentally burned in 1897 and demolished by the then Department of Forestry in 1973.
The house where the insignia ‘Mary’s View’ is located was re-built in the early 1900s. However, Councillor Prendeville isn’t certain who wrote the inscription, which is passed every week by hundreds of people, although they would have to look upwards to see it.
“I’m not aware of who inscribed it. Maybe it was a sort of a reprisal to what Vandeleur had done, that the plaque went up,” Councillor Prendeville suggested.