Carlow Deighton Memorial Hall in Burrin Street, Carlow was built around the mid 1700′s, and while it’s had a long and varied past, it’s been lying empty and derelict for a number of years. Half of the building was demolished in the 1920′s in order to install bathrooms and a kitchen. It was once used as the county courthouse, a theatre, a ballroom, a meeting place and a cinema.

This photo is the property of Mike Purcell: Its an invitation to a dance being held at the Deighton Memorial Hall on Whit Monday 6th June 1960. Addmission is by Invertation only, The band playing was P,J, Tierney and his Band.

The building, on the corner of Burrin Street and Kennedy Avenue, has been sold to a well-known businessman. It was another businessman in 1909, plumber Joseph Deighton, who gave the premises its name and in the late nineteenth century it housed the Deighton Plumbers & Vulcan Foundry & Ironworks. Joseph Deighton later handed the building over to St Mary's Church of Ireland parish for use as a parochial hall, and in the mid-twentieth century it was used as a ballroom.

The Courthouse had been the location of a number of Court martial's in the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion in Carlow. Up until the early 1830s this building functioned as the County Courthouse and was the seat of the Grand Jury (forerunner of the County Council). The prisoner holding cells were located in the basement with direct access to the courtroom.