Having wanted to put a cache here for ages we finally plucked up the courage to ask the owner and he was more than happy to have the cache placed at the Harp House. The cache is a small tupperware box with room for small swappables but no pen so BYOP :)
Millar's Harp House, a landmark on the R446 in Ballydangan, County Roscommon, has recently been restored to its former glory. Also known as "Millar's Ice Cream Shop" or "Millar's Sweet Shop", the small but eye-catching building was erected as an ice cream parlour by Paddy Millar in the early 1960’s in close proximity to his main business concern, a public house.
The arrival of an ice cream parlour to the locality would no doubt have been an exciting event. Local people remember the thrill of the prospect of an ice cream after a hard day's work on the bog. The ice cream arrived from Dublin and, carefully portioned, was placed between crisp wafers and sold as an ice cream sandwich. Each "sandwich" cost 6d or six old pence. At one time the ice cream parlour was a more popular attraction than the public house and several local girls were employed by Millar. Later, however, the ice cream parlour closed and Millar's Harp House reopened as a butcher shop. Local people remember the long queues outside the shop on Saturday evenings.
However, it is its unique physical features that have placed Millar's Harp House on the architectural map of Ireland. The distinctive harp-shaped windows, designed and executed by Paddy Millar himself, symbolise a nationalist pride while the colour scheme of green, white and orange alludes to the Irish flag.
Millar's Harp House closed its doors to the public in 1970 and fell into dereliction. When inspected by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage in 2003 the harp-shaped windows were broken, the sweeping parapet was overgrown, and the interior had become entangled with ivy. It has since been tidied up.