Kinnitty Castle (formerly Castle Bernard), Kinnity, County Offaly

https://www.kinnittycastlehotel.com/index.html

We treated ourselves to a stay in Kinnitty Castle in February 2023. Formerly a home, it is now a hotel.

The website used to include a history, which told us that the present building was originally built by William O’Carroll on the site of an old Abbey in 1630. The building we see today, however, received a major reconstruction by architect brothers James (1779-1877) and George Richard Pain (1793-1838) in 1833. You can see traces of the Abbey in the courtyard.

There is a ninth or tenth-century high cross in front of the hotel, which must have been from the grounds of the Abbey.

In 1641 the castle was confiscated from William O’Carroll, as he must have played a part in the 1641 rebellion. The land was granted in 1663 by King Charles II to Colonel Thomas Winter for his military service.

The Stable yard is in use as a banqueting hall, called the Great Hall of the O’Carrolls, and kitchens.

The website continues, telling us that the Winter family sold the building in 1764 to the Bernards of County Carlow.

Andrew Tierney tells us in his The Buildings of Ireland Central Leinster that Franks Bernard (named after the surname “Franks”), a son of Charles Bernard of Bernard’s Grove, County Laois (now called Blandsfort), leased a small estate here in the early eighteenth century. Either he or his nephew Thomas (d. 1788) probably built the modest T-plan house that forms the core of the castle.

There is another Castle Bernard in County Cork – this seems to have belonged to a different Bernard family.

The castle website tells us that it was Catherine Hely Hutchinson (d. 1844, daughter of Francis Hely Hutchinson, MP for Naas, County Kildare), wife of Colonel Thomas Bernard (d. 1834), who hired the Pain brothers, James and George Pain, to renovate the building, in 1833 (according to Mark Bence-Jones).

James and George Pain were architects of the impressive Mitchellstown Castle, unfortunately no longer existing.

We saw work by the Pain brothers on a visit to Revenue section 482 property Loughton in County Offaly – see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/11/01/loughton-house-moneygall-county-offaly/ Loughton is not Tudor Gothic like Kinnitty.

James and George were sons of James Pain, an English builder and surveyor. Their Grandfather William Pain was the author of a series of builder’s pattern books, so they had architecture in the blood. According to the Dictionary of Irish Architects, James and his younger brother George Richard were both pupils of John Nash, one of the foremost British architects of his day, responsible for the design of many important areas of London including Marble Arch, Regent Street and Buckingham Palace. He was architect to the prolific lover of architecture the Prince Regent, later King George IV. When Nash designed Lough Cutra Castle in County Galway for Charles Vereker in 1811, he recommended that the two brothers should be placed in charge of the work, so it was at this time that they came to Ireland. Lough Cutra is an amazing looking castle privately owned which is available for self-catering rental (very expensive, I am sure! But for those of you with oodles of money to spend, or for an event that requires nine bedrooms…). [2]

James Pain settled in Limerick and George in Cork, but they worked together on a large number of buildings – churches (both Catholic and Protestant), country houses, court houses, gaols and bridges – almost all of them in the south and west of Ireland. [3] In 1823 James Pain was appointed architect to the Board of First Fruits for Munster, responsible for all the churches and glebe houses in the province.

The Pains Gothicized and castellated Dromoland Castle in County Clare at some time from 1819-1838, now a luxury hotel. [4]

The Pains took their Gothicizing skills then to Mitchelstown Castle in 1823-25. In 1825 they also worked on Convamore (Ballyhooly) Castle but that is now a ruin. They also probably worked on Quinville in County Clare and also Curragh Chase in County Limerick (now derelict after a fire in 1941), Blackrock Castle in County Cork (now a science centre, museum and observatory which you can visit [7]), they did some work for Adare Manor in County Limerick (also now a luxury hotel), Clarina Park in Limerick (also, unfortunately, demolished, but you can get a taste of what it must have been like from its gate lodge), Fort William in County Waterford, and they probably designed the Gothicization and castellation of Ash Hill Towers in County Limerick (a section 482 property and with lovely tourist accommodation, see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2023/04/06/ash-hill-kilmallock-co-limerick/), alterations and castellation of Knappogue Castle, County Clare (you can also visit and stay, or attend a medieval style banquet), Aughrane Castle mansion in County Galway (demolished – Bagots used to own it, I don’t know if we are related!), a castellated tower on Glenwilliam Castle, County Limerick and more.

In his 1988 book A Guide to Irish Country Houses, Mark Bence-Jones writes about Kinnitty Castle, formerly named Castle Bernard, that it is a Tudor-Revival castle of 1833, with impressive entrance front with gables, oriels and tracery windows and an octagonal corner tower with battlements and crockets; all in smooth ashlar. [5]

The National Inventory describes it:

“Ashlar limestone walls with castellated parapet, carved limestone plinth course and continuous string course to parapet. Battered walls to basement level. Square-headed window openings with tooled limestone and sandstone label mouldings, chamfered surrounds and punched limestone sills. Castellated box bay to second bay from north-east rising from basement level to first floor with chamfered stone mullions. Oriel window above entrance added at later date.”

Battered walls at basement are walls that slant outwards. This was a traditional building feature of castles, so that stones could be dropped from above and they would not fall straight down but hit the battered walls and bounce outwards to hit intruders.

Mark Bence-Jones defines an oriel window as a large projecting window in Gothic, Tudor, Gothic-Revival and Tudor-Revival architecture; sometimes rising through two or more storeys, sometimes in an upper storey only and carried on corbelling. This particular window is not carried on corbels.

The National Inventory continues: “Single-storey castellated entrance porch with diagonal buttresses surmounted by pinnacles with crockets and finials. Tudor arched opening to porch with label moulding accessed rendered porch with ribbed ceiling, niches to side walls and tooled limestone bell surround and post box flanking door. Square-headed door opening with chamfered limestone surround and label moulding, sandstone threshold and timber double doors.“

Before he married Catherine, Thomas Bernard, MP for County Offaly, married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Prittie, 1st Baron Dunalley of Kilboy, County Tipperary. She died in 1802 and he married for a second time in 1814. He began building work on his house in 1833 but died the following year.

Thomas and Catherine had several children. Their heir was Thomas Bernard (1816-1882). Other sons were Francis, Richard Wellesley, and John Henry Scrope, and daughter Margaret.

Nearby the Bernard family have an unusual pyramid-shaped mausoleum. Richard Wellesley Bernard (c. 1822-1877) completed his military training in Egypt. He was an architect and engineer and it is said that he built the pyramid between 1830-34 but he would have been only eight years old, so perhaps it was constructed by an earlier Bernard. It is an exact replica of the Egyptian pyramid of Cheop.

The website continues: “The building was burned in 1922 by Republican forces and rebuilt by means of a Government grant of £32,000 in 1927.

The Buildings of Ireland Central Leinster book by Andrew Tierney tells us that the castle was rebuilt by Joseph John Bruntz. He was born in Dublin. The Dictionary of Irish Architects tells us that he was a pupil in his father’s office for four years and remained as an assistant for a further three years. After starting to practise independently as an architect circa 1915, he moved in 1917 or 1918 to Edenderry, Co. Offaly, where he set up an office. From 1922 he held the position of architect and civil engineer to the Co. Offaly Board of Health.

The website continues: “The building became the property of Lord Decies in 1946. He in turn sold it and the estate to the Government of Ireland on 12th December 1951. The State used the castle as a Forestry Training centre from 1955 until it was purchased in 1994 and turned into a 37 bedroom luxurious hotel for all guests both locally and internationally to enjoy.“

Arthur George Marcus Douglas De La Poer Beresford (1915-1992), 6th Lord Decies, bought the property in 1946. He sold it in 1951.

It is a wonderful and affordable hotel, full of character.

There’s a bar in the cellar of the hotel, called the Dungeon Bar.

The River Camcor winds through the property.

[1] https://www.irelandscontentpool.com/en

[2] http://www.loughcutra.com/

[3] https://www.dia.ie/architects/view/2640/PAIN-JAMES

[4] https://www.dromoland.ie/

[5] p. 62 (under Castle Bernard), Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988, Constable and Company Ltd, London.