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Ashtown Castle is in the Phoenix Park. The Office of Public Works are currently running one tour per day. [1] The tower house had been incorporated into a house in the late 1700s, and the Office of Public Works demolished the house, which had become very dilapidated, to restore the tower house.
Hugh Tyrrell (d. 1199), later 1st Baron of Castleknock, came to Ireland with Strongbow, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Tyrrell, a second cousin of Strongbow, became right hand man to Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath. De Lacy conferred the feudal barony of Castleknock to Tyrrell.
The land at Ashtown, now part of the Phoenix Park, was granted by Hugh Tyrrell to the Hospital of St. John the Baptist in the 12th century. The Hospital belonged to the “Crutched Friars” (brothers of the cross) and was one of the earliest city charities.
When the monasteries were dissolved in 1540, Walter Foster was leasing the land, which he in turn sublet to two tenants.
It is not known when the tower house was built but a fragment of a wooden roof truss, found in the wall during the restoration project, has been dated by dendrochronology to the early seventeenth century. The OPW website tells us that it could date further back, as early as the fifteenth century.
In 1429 a statute was passed by King Henry IV to grant £10 to every man within the Pale who would build a castle of certain minimal dimentions in the following ten years. Ashtown may have been built in this period.
On the tour, our tour guide told us the castle was built for a General Lambert in the early 1600s. I am not sure if this is conjecture or fact! General John Lambert (7 September 1619 – 1 March 1684) was an English army officer and politician and he fought in Cromwell’s army for the Parliamentarians. He was also Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Major-General John Lambert, (1619-1683), Parliamentarian, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
From the OPW website:
“For years it was completely hidden within the walls of a Georgian mansion once occupied by the under-secretary for Ireland. When that house was demolished in the late 1980s, the castle was rediscovered. It has since been fully restored and now welcomes visitors.”
Ashtown Castle, Dublin, courtesy of Phoenix Park website. The arrangement of the growing hedges outline where the house was, before it was demolished.
Outside, the hedges to one side of the castle form the shape of the house that used to stand there, attached to the old castle.
“The castle was dated to the early seventeenth century on the basis of surviving fragments of a roof truss found in the wall during the restoration project in the early 1990s. There is in the stonework some suggestion of a further wing to the north, but no archaeological evidence was found, leaving this section unresolved. The builder is unknown, but in 1641 the estate was in the ownership of John Connell, a distant ancestor of Daniel O’Connell. Curiously the Civil Survey, 1654, lists him as a Protestant. Stone from a quarry at Pelletstown owned by Connell was used in the building of the original wall of the Park.”
When James Butler 12th Earl of Ormond (who later became 1st Duke of Ormond) was created Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1662, he purchased the tower house and lands around it to create a deer park for King Charles II.
In 1668 Marcus Trevor, Viscount Dungannon, was appointed Ranger of the Park. Along with two Keepers, he was responsible for overseeing the Fallow deer imported from England.
The tower house became the official residence of second Keeper of the Park, William Flower, but he assigned it to a subordinate.
In the late eighteenth century the tower house was extended to become the Under Secretary’s residence, and was called Ashtown Lodge.
After Irish Independence, the house served as the residence of the Papal Nuncio. In 1978 the Papal Nuncio moved to a different residence.
The guide showed us what the house used to look like, that had been attached to the castle. For some more photographs, you can visit the Irish Tower House website. [2]
Restoration started in Autumn 1989. Corbels that carried the floor levels were uncovered, and also portions of fireplaces on the first and second floors and a piece of window jamb on the first floor.
Restoration work including new stonework, insertion of oak floors and roof was carried out by craftsmen attached to the National Monuments depot in the Phoenix Park.
Carbury Castle, Co Kildare (or Castle Carbury or Carbery) – ruin
Carbury Castle, County Kildare, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Mark Bence-Jones. 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.
p. 64. “(Colley, sub Wellington, D.PB; and Harberton, V/PB) A fortified Jacobean manor-house, with tall chimneys, former seat of the Colleys, ancestors of the Duke of Wellington; built on the site of a medieval castle of the de Berminghams. Still inhabited by the Colleys ca 1750, but became a ruin soon afterwards.”
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland. Collins Press, Cork, 2010.
Loeber, Rolf. Irish Houses and Castles: 1400-1740. Edited by Kevin Whelan and Matthew Stout, Four Courts Press, 2019. :
p. 39. Under the seventh and eighth earls of Kildare (Thomas, 143078; Gerald, 1456-1513), a renewed expansion took place, starting with the recovery of Rathangan (Kildare) in 1459; by 1500, the O’Connors had been pushed further westward, losing the strongholds of Morett and Lea in Laois. Fortifications were erected in Kildare, particularly at key border points, noteably in Castledermot (1485), where theere had been a medieval walled town, and Powerscourt (1500) in Wicklow. IN the early 16th C, the earl of Kildares justiced administered English law from Carbury Castle in Kildare near the Laois border….A map of Leinster (1520-30) showed Kildare castles at Maynooth, and along or near the “frontier” Barrow at Rathangan, Woodstock, Athy, Kilkea and Castledermot. A subsequent earl of Kildare, however, revolted between 1534 and 1536 [Silken Thomas]; in 1536, the border county of Kildare was “much waste and void of inhabitants… But would God that it would please the King’s Highness to send Englishmen to inhabit here…”
Some readers might not be aware that the Wellesley family, of which the most famous line is that descended from the first Duke of Wellington, used to spell their name Wesley. More importantly, their original name was Colley: in 1728, on inheriting the estates of Dangan and Mornington in County Meath from a cousin called Garret Wesley, Richard Colley legally adopted the latter’s surname. The grandfather of the Iron Duke, Richard Wesley was eventually created first Baron of Mornington (his son, called Garret Wesley in memory of the man who had bequeathed them his estates, would become first Earl of Mornington in 1760). All this is by way of explaining an oft-mentioned but rarely understood link between the Duke of Wellington and Carbury Castle, County Kildare. …
Carbury Castle stands at the top of a hill believed to have been at the heart of an ancient territory known as Cairbre Uí Chiardha, associated with a sept of the Uí Néill clan, Lords of Carbury first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters. From this clan was supposed to have been descended Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fourth century king. The name Carbury derives from Cairbre (or Coirpre), one of Niall’s sons. However the origins of the castle lie with the Norman Meiler Fitzhenry who constructed a motte on the site. The land then passed into the possession of the de Berminghams. During the confused wars of the 15th century Castle Carbury, as it was then called, was attacked and plundered on several occasions, passing in and out of diverse hands. By then titular ownership lay with the Prestons: in the second half of the 14th century, Robert Preston, first Baron Gormanston had married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Walter de Bermingham, Lord of Carbury.
In the early part of the reign of Elizabeth I, the lands of Carbury were bestowed by the crown on Henry Colley, an English soldier who rose to become an Irish Privy Counsellor and was invested as a Knight in 1574. He was succeeded by his son, another Henry who made an advantageous marriage to Anne, eldest daughter of Adam Loftus, the great Archbishop of Dublin who also acted as Lord Chancellor of Ireland and first Provost of Trinity College Dublin, which he was instrumental in founding. Several more generations of Colleys followed, until another Henry inherited Carbury in the late 17th century: it was his younger son Richard who, on inheriting estates in County Meath changed his surname to Wesley. Richard’s elder brother, yet another Henry Colley, only had one child, a daughter Mary who married Arthur Pomeroy, created first Viscount Pomeroy in 1791. It was during this couple’s lifetime that Carbury Castle was abandoned, since in the 1760s the Pomeroys built themselves a new residence nearby, the Palladian Newberry Hall.
What remains today of Carbury Castle is primarily a late 16th/early 17th century fortified manor house, presumably erected on much earlier foundations. Its most striking feature are the tall chimney stacks but inside the building one also finds the remnants of the stone window mullions and large fireplaces. The internal floors have almost gone, as have room divisions so it is difficult to gain any sense of the original layout. No doubt soil levels have altered over the centuries, making such an assessment even harder but since the site naturally slopes quite steeply it is likely there were more storeys on one side of the building than on the other, one portion holding a barrel-vaulted cellar. A little further down the hill lies an ancient graveyard, with the remains of a chapel’s west gable, and the Colley mausoleum which looks to be of early 18th century origin. It is not hard to see why a castle was built and maintained here, since it commands views of the surrounding flat Kildare countryside for many miles around, ensuring the occupants were well warned of any threat of attack. Today the scale and location of Carbury Castle ensure that even as a ruin it still exudes authority.
The motte near Carbury Castle was probably built by Meiler FitzHenry who was granted the area by Strongbow. The castle was acquired in the 14th century by the de Berminghams.
They probably built the older parts of the existing castle. In the 15th century it was taken by the native Irish and in 1562 it was granted to the Colley (or Cowley) Family. They were the ancestors of the Dukes of Wellington. The Colleys built a large strong house in the 17th century. Originally there seems to have been a rectangular building with vaulted rooms at the lower level. A projecting wing was added on the W side although the stonework in both sections is similar.
An added section on the E side has four 17th century chimney stacks and some large mullioned windows. The top of the hill may be partly artificial.
Carbury Castle is a multi-period structure featuring –
A probable 12th century earthwork castle/motte [KD008-001001].
Abutting the earthwork on its eastern flank, a 13th century masonry castle [KD008-001002].
The castle was enlarged to the north and east in the late 16th/early 17thcentury [KD008-001003].
18th/19th century alterations with landscaped gardens [KD008-001004].
There is also the possibility that the church remains [KD008-001005], lying 80m downslope, had a Medieval origin and thus an association with the castle complex.
‘Carbury Castle is a multi-period fortress sited on high ground in a very isolated area with no obvious easy access to it. It is, however, close to a graveyard and church which could originally have been contemporary with the building of the earthwork castle which is sited immediately to the west of the stone fortress. Also, like Loughcrew and Knowth, there are prehistoric burial mounds which are located on higher ground to the south of the castle’ (Sweetman 1999, 38).
The lands of Carbury were granted in the late 12th century to Meiler FitzHenry by Strongbow (Devitt 1899, 92). He was probably responsible for the construction of the original earthwork castle. Upon his death the holdings would have reverted to Strongbow’s heirs. Thus in 1189, Carbury came into the possession of William, Earl Marshall, the husband of Strongbow’s daughter Isabel (ibid., 93).
The first specific mention of the castle was in 1234. In that year a ‘mandate (was given) to Hugh de Lascy, Earl of Ulster, to give seisin to the messenger of Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke, of the castle of Cabry in his custody owing to the war between the King and Richard Earl of Pembroke’ (CDI 1875, i, 323). In 1249 the Justiciary was instructed by the King to grant Margaret, Countess of Lincoln, wife of Walter, late Earl Marshall, seisin of the castles of Kildare and Carbury (ibid., 446).
By the 14th century the castle was in the hands of the de Bermingham family. The family remained prominent throughout the following centuries. In 1319 John de Bermingham was created Earl of Louth. In 1329 he was slain during a siege of his castle at Braganstown by the gentry of that county. In 1368 a parley was held between the Irish and the English in Carbury. The Berminghams exploited the situation and seized Thomas Burley, Prior of Kilmainham and Chancellor of Ireland, John FitzRichard, Sheriff of Meath, and several others. The Chancellor was subsequently handed over in exchange for James Bermingham, who had been held, ‘in handcuffs and fetters’, in Trim Castle (Butler 1842, 154-5).
On the 23rd of October 1554 ‘Henry Cowly’ was granted a lease of ‘Castlecarbre’ – the castle, its demesne lands, along with other lands, for example Kylemore and Derrygarte (DKR 9 1877, 63). The Cowly/Colley family were ancestors of the Duke of Wellington (Mac Lysaght 1982, 209).
The crowning glory of Carbury Castle are the unrivalled examples of Elizabethan/Jacobean-style chimneys (see attached photograph). Whilst castles at Enniscorthy in County Wexford and Newtownstewart in County Fermanagh have similar examples, none are as perfectly realised as those at Carbury. It is these chimneys that are, by their very nature, currently under the greatest threat unless stabilisation work is urgently undertaken. Their avoidable loss would simply be unforgivable. Destruction by neglect.
Sir William Wilde wrote – ‘…with its chimneys, narrow pointed gables, and large stone-sashed windows… (it’s) one of the best specimens of the castellated mansions of about the time of James the 1st’ … ‘Four of the chimneys, three of which are in the eastern front, have sixteen sides, … being beautifully wrought and moulded at the top’ (Wilde 1849, 28).
David Sweetman, former Chief Archaeologist of the National Monuments Service, has stated – ‘Carbury Castle was surveyed because I thought it was an extremely important site (see attached plan). Few sites have such a continuous occupation with obvious periods of building from the Anglo-Norman fortification to the Elizabethan period. The site is obviously a dangerous structure and because of its uniqueness it would be great if stabilisation works could be undertaken’ (Pers. comm., PDS).
To achieve proper stabilisation, and to maintain ongoing maintenance, it is imperative to take this valuable monument-rich complex into the care of the State.
References:
Butler, R. (ed. & Trans.) 1842 Jacobi Grace, Kilkenniensis, Annales Hiberniae. Dublin. Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, 1171-1307, Vol.1. 1875, London.
Devitt, M. 1896-99 ‘Carbury and the Birmingham’s country’, JKAS2, 85-110.
Mac Lysaght, E. 1982 More Irish Families. Dublin.
Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and Keeper of the State Papers in Ireland: Ninth report. 1877, Dublin and London.
Sweetman, P.D. 1999 The Medieval Castles of Ireland. Cork & Woodbridge.
Wilde, W.R. 1849 The Beauties of the Boyne, and its tributary, the Blackwater. Dublin.
A castle was erected in 1320 the control the bridge at Leighlinbridge. The remains today are mainly of 16th century date and consist of a rectangular tower with the SW corner collapsed.
The castle appears to be five storeys high. The ground floor is now only a half storey above present ground level. There is a vault over the first floor. At the top floor there are traces of a mural passage on all sides.
At the eastern wall there is a machicolation which guarded the entrance.
In the adjoining garden there are fragments of a bawn wall with defensive loops. Hugh deLacy may have built a castle on this site in 1180 but it was superseded by a Carmellite friary in 1260. the present structure is said to have been built by Sir Edward Bellingham in 1547. Leighlinbridge was captured by Cromwellian forces under Colonel Hewson in 1650.
The Black Castle, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, courtesy Robert O’Byrne, Irish Aesthete.
The Black Castle in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow. The first fortification here was constructed in 1181 on the orders of Anglo-Norman knight Hugh de Lacy to defend a crucial crossing point on the river Barrow (the first bridge followed in the early 14th century). When the Carmelite order came to Ireland in the 1270s, a friary was established adjacent to the castle and it survived until the suppression of all such religious houses in 1540s when the property passed into the hands of Sir Edward Bellingham, Lord Deputy of Ireland. It appears he was responsible for building what stands today, a 16th century three-storey tower house. Badly damaged during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s/50s, the Black Castle thereafter fell into ruin, the south-west corner tumbling down in the late 19th century.
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St. Mary’s Abbey house is one of the oldest properties on the Section 482 list. Now a private home, the building was probably initially part of an Augustinian Abbey, situated across the River Boyne from Trim Castle. We visited Trim Castle after seeing the Abbey, and learned that in 1182 when Hugh de Lacy was granted the Liberty of Meath, he occupied this site at Trim Castle. See my entry about Trim Castle.
Hugh de Lacy (born before 1135, died 1186) was an Anglo-Norman who came to Ireland with King Henry II’s troops. He was created Lord Justice and fought to establish English authority. He was also put in charge of Dublin Castle so was a sort of first Viceroy of Ireland. As well as having Trim Castle built, he built a ring of castles around Dublin to secure the land. Other castles reputedly built by Hugh de Lacy in Meath are Dunsany, which is also a Section 482 property, and Killeen Castle, both of which were held by the Cusack family on behalf of the de Lacys.
St. Mary’s Abbey was established in the twelfth century, and is said to be on the site of a church established by St. Patrick, the fifth century missionary in Ireland. The church was destroyed in 1172 by the local Irishman Conor O’Loughlinn [1], and rebuilt by Hugh de Lacy, so the still standing steeple may have been built around the same time as Trim’s Castle Keep, or as the author of Trim: Its Ecclesiastical Ruins, Its Castle, Etc writes, the steeple was probably built after a fire in 1368.
The building listed on Revenue Section 482 is now called St. Mary’s Abbey, after the abbey of which it was probably a part. It is also called Talbot’s Castle as it was said to have been built, Mark Bence-Jones tells us, by Sir John Talbot (c. 1384-1453), 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, for his own occupation when he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, although as I will explain, I do not think that this was the case. [3]
John Talbot (c. 1384-1453), 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, Detail of illuminated miniature from the Talbot Shrewsbury. He is in a habit as a knight of the Garter. Behind him a Talbot hound, his heraldic badge. presenting the book to Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, 1445. His robe displays several encircled Garters. See Poems and Romances (Shrewsbury book), illuminated by the MASTER OF JOHN TALBOT – http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=47542
The National Inventory dates the building to the incredibly early date of 1415, which would coincide with the idea that it may have been built by John Talbot. The Abbey itself existed before this, so Talbot may have taken part of the abbey to be his home. His crest adorns the wall of a tower part of the house. However, I think it is unlikely that Talbot ever lived here.
The Abbey was burned in 1368. Shortly after the fire, the abbey erected a statue of the Virgin Mary that became famous for its miracles of healing, and so became a place of pilgrimage. It seems unlikely that Talbot lived in the Abbey at this time, therefore. It was still an Abbey at the time of John Talbot, in 1415. Perhaps his coat of arms marks his financial support of the Abbey, thus giving him the blessings and prayers of the Abbey.
The Abbey was dissolved at the time of King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The author of Trim: Its Ecclesiastical Ruins, Its Castle, Etc tells us that on 15 May 1542 agents of Henry VIII forced Geoffrey Dardis, St. Mary’s last abbot, to sign his own expulsion, and the abbey’s lands were granted to Sir Anthony St. Leger (b. circa 1496, d. 1559), who in 1540 was Lord Deputy of Ireland. (see [1]).
It seems to me that it would have been after the dissolution of the abbey that the abbey building was converted into a secular residence.
The turret with the Talbot arms, which is of two storeys over a basement (although today it looks three storey), is distinct from the rest of the range, Christine Casey and Alistair Rowan point out in their Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster book. (see [2]) They write that: “The punched limestone rubble and big square embrasures still visible in the basement are similar to the Yellow Steeple and support and early to mid-C15 date.”
The stucco work would not have been part of the abbey, as bucrania, ox’s skulls, allude to the ancient Greek and Roman ceremonies of sacrifice, and sacrificial cattle were decorated with garlands of fruit and flowers or decorative ropes with tassels.
From the vestibule one enters the Gothic maroon coloured dining room, which leads into the drawing room, which is thought to have been the refectory of the abbey. Mark Bence-Jones tells us that the building incorporated part of the Abbey cloister, which forms a vaulted recess on one side of the drawing room.
The dining room has a fireplace that looks like Connemara marble, and the swags again adorn the walls over the wood panelling.
The drawing room has what Casey and Rowan call a “remarkable and very rare medieval survival, an oriel window or gallery opening off the room in the southeast corner, roofed over by two bays of quadripartite vaulting, springing from octagonal shafts, all of punched grey limestone.”
Rowan and Casey continue: “One has only to look at the refectory building at Newtown Trim to recognize that this is the characteristic position of the reader’s desk or gallery from which scripture was read while the monks ate their meals.”
There’s also a wonderful fireplace that looks very old.
In 1617 King James I granted the churches, rectories and chapels of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Trim to Thomas Ashe of Trim. A website about the Ashe family tells us that Sir Thomas Ashe, of St. John‘s and of Drumsill (now Ashfield Hall), in the county of Cavan, was knighted at Dublin Castle by Sir George Carew, Lord Deputy, on St. James’s day, 25 July 1603, on the occasion of the coronation of James I. [4]
Little seems to be known about the building until it became a school. Mark Bence-Jones tells us that the property was given gables in C17, by which time it has become a “Latin school.” Casey and Rowan write that in the opening years of the eighteenth century the Diocesan School of Meath, which was being run by Dean Jonathan Swift’s curate at Laracor, was without fixed accommodation.
In 1716 Jonathan Swift’s friend “Stella” (her read name was Esther Johnson) bought “St Mary’s Abbey” from John Blakely and the following year she either sold it or gave it to Swift, and it then became the Diocesan School. Peter has copies of the deeds framed. Swift sold it after another year.
Portrait of Esther Johnson (Stella), late 18th-early 19th century. after James Latham (1696-1747), courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite sale.
In an essay by Eileen MacCarvill, “Johnsons, Lineal Descendants of Uí Néill,” MacCarvill writes that “Stella” and Elizabeth Dingley, who had relatives named Hammond who lived in Trim, moved from their home at Moor Park in England where Ester had lived with the Temple family in 1698-99, to Talbot Castle in Trim, where they lived with William Johnson and his wife Jane née Blakeley. In 1708 William Johnson sold Talbot Castle to his wife’s brother John Blakeley of Rochestown, County Meath, for £45. Esther Johnson then purchased the house in 1718 for £65 and sold it some months later to Swift for £200. He sold it to George Dennis of Summerhill, County Meath, for £223. [ http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/NMAJ%20vol%2017%2009%20Johnsons%20-%20lineal%20descendents%20of%20Ui%20N%82ill,%20by%20Eileen%20MacCarvill.pdf ]
Casey and Rowan tell us that after the building had become the Diocesan School in the eighteenth century, a report of the Commission for Irish Education of 1827 described it as “a very old building forming part of the quadrangle of St Mary’s Abbey.” Famous past pupils include Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) and William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865), Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist.
Peter showed us some metal bars outside an upstairs window which he suggested may have been supports for William Rowan Hamilton to mount a telescope.
The school closed down and the building was bought by the last schoolteacher, Rev James Hamilton. He was the uncle of William Rowan Hamilton. [5] The Dictionary of Irish Biography describes Reverend James Hamilton: “James Hamilton was a classicist with some knowledge of oriental languages; he recognised his nephew’s precocious talent and fed him an extraordinary diet of the classics, Hebrew, and a wide range of oriental and modern languages. He was quite a taskmaster, albeit a kindly and supportive one, and his nephew responded positively.” [6]
William Rowan Hamilton,(1805-1865), Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Irish Academy,(pl. for ‘Dublin University Magazine’, Vol. XIX, January 1842)Engraver John Kirkwood After Charles Grey, Scottish, c.1808-1892. Photograph courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland.
It was occupied as a private house by him and his descendants until 1909, when it was bought by Archibald Montgomery, who carried out various improvements and panelled the principal rooms. Montgomery was a Dublin lawyer and Sheriff of Dublin.
Casey and Rowan tell us that Archibald Montgomery added an attic storey with yellow-brick gables to the west end, and retained a mish-mash of pointed eighteenth century sash windows and Gothic-French windows throughout the rest of the building.
The lobby upstairs has lovely trefoil style windows. Casey and Rowan write that there are angel shield bearers in some window spandrels upstairs, and that they were probably found and reused in the 1909 reconstruction.
In the basement Peter pointed out a feature of the ceiling which would indicate its age. There are what look like scratches, which would be the remains of wickerwork ceiling.
Montgomery died in 1942 and everything in the house was sold. The house was purchased in 1951 by an engineer from Manchester, John O’Leary. He was also a big game hunter, and won the bronze medal in the 1924 Olympics in Paris for shooting. He and his wife had no children, and he died in 1967 and his wife Eileen in 1981. They left all the contents in the house. Peter Higgins moved in as Caretaker, in 1984 and later had the opportunity to buy the property in 1991.
The gardens tier down to the river, and the house has wonderful views of Trim Castle and the River Boyne.
[2] Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland, North Leinster. The Counties of Longford, Louth, Meath and Westmeath. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
[3] Mark Bence-Jones. 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.
Irish Historic Houses 