Irish Castles, County Kildare & County Carlow
Irelandseye.com continues the tour of Ireland, moving down the east coast, with details of Irish castles. Now to Counties Kildare and Carlow:
County Kildare
Maynooth Castle
The tides of war have left their mark on the great castle of Maynooth - the chief residence of the all-powerful Earls of Kildare from the early 14th until the 16th century. Most of the curtain walls have now vanished, but the entrance gate and hall-keep still testify to the castle's former glory.The massive keep, one of the largest of its kind in Ireland, probably occupies the site of an earlier castle built soon after the conquest by Gerald FitzMaurice, one of Strongbow's associates. Begun sometime around 1210, the building was much altered in 1426 by the sixth Earl of Kildare. What remains now are its eastern walls and towers, together with the main entrance gate on the south - the present entry to the castle.
In one of the first recorded uses of siege guns in Ireland, Sir William Skeffington, Henry VIII's Lord Deputy in Ireland, took Maynooth Castle in 1535 after a week's bombardment. In the "Pardon of Maynooth" - a byword in contemporary Ireland - he put the garrison to the sword despite their having surrendered unconditionally. It was restored to the eleventh Earl of Kildare in 1552, repaired in 1630, taken by the Confederates in 1641 and dismantled at the end of the war.
Maynooth. NGR: N 938377.
County Carlow
Ballymoon Castle
Like so many Irish castles, Ballymoon has no recorded history, but on architectural grounds it must have been built c. 1290-1310 and the most likely builders were the Carew family. The castle - as striking as it is unusual - comprises a courtyard about 80 feet square, delimited by granite walls, 8 feet thick and 20 feet high.
The interior is now bare, but the walls' many embrasures, loops, fireplaces and doors bear witness to the former presence of two-storey ranges, some with cellars that delimited the enclosure. The fine double-fireplace on the north belonged to the great hall, while such features as the cross loops allow us to date the castle. It may not have been in use for very long; indeed, some argue it was never finished.
3 km (2 miles) E of Bagenalstown. NGR: S 738615.
Carlow Castle
This great keep was formerly one of the most impressive Norman castles in Ireland. Only the western wall and two towers now survive, the remainder having been accidentally blown up in 1814 by "a ninny-pated physician of the name of Middleton" who leased the building for use as a lunatic asylum and "applied blasts of gunpowder for enlarging the windows and diminishing the walls, and brought down two-thirds of the pile into a rubbishy tumulus in memory of his surpassing presumption and folly".The original keep was probably built between 1207 and 1213 by William Marshall. It may be the earliest example of a "four-towered" keep in the British Isles and appears to have been directly inspired by French examples, notably Nemours (Seine-et-Marne). The entrance lies at first-floor level in the north wall and access to all storeys was by way of stone stairways in the thickness of the west wall.
Ownership of the castle passed to the Crown in 1306 and was later granted to the Earls of Norfolk, who held it until 1537. It was captured by James FitzGerald in 1494, again by Silken Thomas in 1535, and changed hands a number of times before being purchased by Donough, Earl of Thomond in 1616. It fell to the Confederates in 1642 but was later returned to Thomond after being liberated by Ireton in 1650.
Carlow town. NGR: S 718767.
Huntington Castle
The first view of the attractive grey-rendered castle of Huntington leaves one in no doubt that this is a building of great character and antiquity. Approached from the village of Clonegal down a straight 17th-century lime avenue, its front seems hardly to have a straight line anywhere - the side walls gently leaning to one angle and the sash windows lying askew. Additions, alterations and a mixture of styles accumulated over the centuries add enormously to Huntington's charm, while a treasure trove of varied contents reflects family ownership spanning three and a half centuries.The old core of Huntington Castle is a tower house built between 1625 and 1630. A remarkable yew walk nearby possibly belongs to the 17th century, though claims that these trees were planted as early as the 15th century cannot be entirely discounted. Other formal garden features include a canal and the impressive avenue of lime trees.
The castle remained largely unaltered until 1860 when Alexander Durdin began additions to the rear of the castle. He also embarked on a disastrous attempt to enlarge the castle's basement windows, causing subsidence in the walls and the collapse of the drawing-room ceiling, which he replaced with a strapwork plaster design.
Aside from the bathrooms with plumbed water - a great rarity in those days - as well as central heating, electricity was also installed in 1888, power for which was generated from a water turbine on the River Derry. Huntington was one of the first country houses in Ireland to have electricity, and in order to satisfy local interest a light was kept burning on the front lawn so that the curious could come up and inspect it.
With its marvellously atmospheric rooms, Huntington is indeed a house of profound character, filled with the spirits of the past. Among the most memorable rooms are the library, the tapestry room and the conservatory, which houses an old vine - a cutting from a plant at Hampton Court dating around 1900. The cheerful drawing-room contains a collection of porcelain including a large famille verte bowl looted by a soldier from the Imperial Palace in Peking.
Clonegal village. NGR: S 913607.
from the Appletree Press title Irish Castles
Click here Irish Castles to buy the newly reformatted book from Amazon.co.uk. The previous edition of Irish Castles is also still available from Amazon.co.uk.
