Photographer Rebecca Brownlie had just left the empty canteen in an old abandoned convent school when she paused to take a picture of the building’s impressive staircase. Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland.

Below you'll find 16 abandoned sites on the island of Ireland that appear in the tome, with caption information courtesy of the author. Her passion for abandoned buildings and love of photography have led her to appear on several local television shows featuring some of Ireland’s lost buildings. Beautifully illustrated with 180 photographs, readers are taken on an enthralling tour of the 'lesser-known corners' of the 'enchanting island' - where they'll see stranded shipwrecks, a magical stone supposed to give 'great eloquence', a ruined castle with a 'murder window', and more. These busy years faded with the austerity of war, and the property gradually declined and was sold to the State, which failed to care adequately for the house. These plans had been delayed and he was happy for us to carry out investigations and let us come and go as we pleased.

Brownlie is instead intent on capturing houses – large and small, mansions and cottages, silent railway stations, echoing prisons and empty dance halls, military forts and hotels – which retain a breath of life. When I first saw Cairndhu I couldn’t believe we had a property like this in Northern Ireland and that I’d never seen or heard of it. Abandoned Ireland is packed with beautiful, evocative pictures of neglected buildings which now serve as crumbling time capsules of days past. MV ALTA, COUNTY CORK: 'This ship was abandoned at sea in October 2018 and finally washed up on shore in February 2020,' the book reveals. Illustrated with 180 photographs, Abandoned Ireland provides a fascinating pictorial exploration of the little-known corners of this enchanting land.

Merrion Press have done a fantastic job with putting this all together and making the final book possible, no detail has been left out and I wish to thank them for that. Brownlie’s full-time job is with a pharmaceutical company and she’s self-taught as a photographer, but she has a natural eye for composition, and a talent for picking out features of interest, whether that’s highlighting the breathtaking architectural aspects of a building, or honing in on the sights that tell the stories of the forgotten lives within.Abandoned Ireland by Dominic Connolly, published by Amber Books , shows the extraordinary past of the small island country, exploring everywhere 'from the sparsely inhabited west coast to the urban buzz of Dublin and Belfast '. Princess Margaret has even been recorded visiting the house and having lunch there while on a tour of Northern Ireland.