Market-houses were the commercial and administrative nerve centres of Irish provincial towns, typically providing an open arcaded ground floor where traders could shelter while conducting business, with a more formal assembly or court room above. This one follows that pattern closely, though its architectural detail lifts it a little above the functional.

Built around the middle of the 1700s, the two-storey structure presents its best face eastward, where five arched openings at ground level form a continuous arcade across the entrance front. Above them, five tall round-headed windows light the upper floor. The building is constructed in two distinct materials: the ground floor is coursed ashlar, meaning stone cut and laid in regular horizontal courses, while the upper storey shifts to random rubble, a rougher and less labour-intensive finish. A cut limestone band course marks the transition between the two treatments, drawing a clean horizontal line across the facade. At the roofline, a parapet with cornice conceals a hipped roof, and finials punctuate the skyline. At the centre, a cupola carries both a clock and a weather vane, the kind of civic flourish that announced a town's self-regard to anyone passing through.

At the time these details were recorded, the building was in the process of being converted into a library, which would give it a new public function not entirely unlike its original one.