Menlough (or Menlo) Castle, Co Galway – ‘lost’

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. 205. “(Blake, Bt of Menlough/PB) A gabled C17 tower house with tall chimneystacks in the gables, on the bank of the Corrib River two miles above Galway; altered and enlarged at various periods…. Menlough Castle was the scene of much high-living in C18 and early C19; Sir John Blake, 12^th Bt, is said to have been made an MP to give him immunity from his creditors; according to the story, when he had been duly elected, his constituents came as a body to Menlough and called him ashore from the boat in which he was sitting in order to avoid two process-servers who were waiting for him on the riverbank. In Victorian and Edwardian days, there were less extravagant festivities; regattas and parties on the lawns by the river. Then, on 26 July 1910, there was a disasterous fire at the castle, in which Eleanor Blake, the daughter of 14^th Bt, perished. The entire building was gutted, and has remained a ruin ever since.” 

Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.

see http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2018/09/menlough-castle.html