Barberstown Castle is a structure originally built in 1288[1] in Straffan, County Kildare, Ireland, 25 km (15 miles) west of Dublin. It has been operating as a hotel since 1971 and is surrounded by 20 acres (8.1 ha) of gardens. Renovations in 1996 revealed a previously undiscovered tunnel that links the castle to the nearby church in Straffan and is thought to have been used under the Penal Laws.

History
The castle was built by Nicholas Barby c. 1288 on land originally owned by the Fitzgerald family. In 1630 William Sutton of one of the foremost families in the area owned the property.

In 1689 it was confiscated from Lord Kingston by the Earl of Tyrconnell after the accession of King James 11 of England. It then became the property of the Commissioners of the Revenue who leased it to Roger Kelly in the late 17th century. At the end of that century it passed through a number of hands, including Bartholomew Vanhomrigh who bought it for £1,033 in 1703, together with 335 acres (135 hectares) of land. Vanhomrigh had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1697 and was the father of Vanessa, lover of Dean Swift. He sold it to the Henrys who forced by financial circumstances to sell it on to Hugh Barton of the wine family Barton and Guestier. He built the last wing of the house in the 1830s. (He also built Straffan House, known today at the K Club).

In the 20th century it was sold by the Huddlestons to Mrs. Norah Devlin who converted it into a hotel in 1971. Eric Clapton purchased the property in 1979 and in 1987 sold it to the current owner, Ken Healy, who lives in the property. Healy has renovated it from a 10 bedroom guesthouse with three bathrooms to a 59 bedroom Fáilte Ireland approved 4 Star Hotel.

Barberstown Castle

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Maynooth Castle is a ruined 12th century castle in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland which stands at the entrance to the South Campus of Maynooth University.

History
The area covered by modern Kildare was granted by Strongbow to Maurice Fitzgerald in 1176. The castle was built at the junction of two streams in the late 12th century and became the home of the Fitzgerald family from then on and was expanded by Sir John Fitzgerald in the 15th century. The Fitzgeralds became the Earls of Kildare and Lords Deputy of Ireland.

The Fitzgerald occupation of the castle ended with the 1534 rebellion of Silken Thomas, the son of the ninth Earl of Kildare. An English force led by William Skeffington bombarded the massive castle in March 1535, the heavy modern siege guns of the English army making a ruin of much of the Medieval structure. The castle fell after a ten-day siege and the garrison summarily executed before the castle gate. Silken Thomas was captured shortly afterwards and committed to the Tower of London with his five uncles. They were executed for treason at Tyburn on 3 February 1537.

The Castle was restored in 1630-35 by Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, after his daughter had married George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare but much of this building was destroyed in the 1640s during the Eleven years war. Only the gatehouse (on which united arms of the Boyles and FitzGeralds can still be viewed) and the Solar Tower survive. The Fitzgeralds left Maynooth for good and made first Kilkea Castle and then Carton House their family seat.

Restoration work on the castle was restarted by the Office of Public Works in February 2000 to develop it into a Heritage Site. It is now open to the public from June to October, 10.00 a.m. - 5.45 p.m.. Today the partly ruined building remains as a tourist attraction, with limited access possible.

Maynooth Castle

Leixlip (/ˈliːkslɪp/ or /ˈliːslɪp/; Irish: Léim an Bhradáin) is a town in north-east County Kildare, Ireland. Its location on the confluence of the River Liffey and the Rye Water has marked it as a frontier town historically: on the border between the ancient kingdoms of Leinster and Brega, as an outpost of The Pale, and today on Kildare's border with Dublin.

As of 2016, the population of the town was 15,504.[1] It is the fourth largest town in Kildare, and the 29th largest in Ireland.

Name
The placename comes from the Old Norse lax hlaup (Younger Futhark: ᛚᛅᚼᛋ ᚼᛚᛅᚢᛒ; pronounced [laks l̥ɔup]) which means ""salmon leap"". The name in Irish (Léim an Bhradáin) is a direct translation of this, and was first adopted in the 1890s.[3] In Latin, it is Saltus salmonis, from which comes the names of the baronies of North Salt and South Salt.[4]

History
Leixlip was the site of the famous Battle of Confey, in which the Viking King Sigtrygg Caech of Dublin defeated the Irish King of Leinster around the year 917. The first settlement at Leixlip was an outpost of Early Scandinavian Dublin, built at the furthest point where longships could be rowed up the Liffey. Its status as an outpost of Dublin continued for centuries, marking a border of The Pale.

The town was home to Arthur Guinness's first brewery in 1755, where he brewed ales until he moved on to St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin in 1759.[5]

The first history of the town was published in 2005.[6]

Festival
The Leixlip Festival (previously known as the Salmon Festival) has taken place every year since 1990 on the June bank holiday weekend. It offers live entertainment in pubs, a number of open-air concerts, and also a street carnival.

Most notably, in 1995 the Festival Committee decided to include 'The Arrival of the Vikings' as a theme for the festival. It was decided to invite Viking Re-Enactment groups from the UK to participate in the weekends festivities in full Viking dress and to stage mock battles.

The committee, in conjunction with FAS who at the time provided resources to organise and stage the festival, decided to build a Viking replica ship which would be burnt in a battle re-enactment on the banks of the Liffey on the festival closing night with a fireworks display. Three members of the organising team, with the aid of two FAS carpenters spent 5–6 weeks constructing the to-scale replica ship at the Wonderful Barn site in Leixlip. For the festival, the boat was transferred to the banks of the Liffey in the centre of Leixlip village, where as planned it was ceremoniously burnt on the Festival Sunday night.

The fireworks display continues to take place on the Sunday night since 1995.

Leixlip Salmon Festival Limited also provides a youth training scheme in association with Foras Áiseanna Saothair. In recent years the festival has played host to bands such as The Coronas, Aslan, The Blizzards, The Hothouse Flowers, Republic of Loose, Delorentos and The Riptide Movement. Solo artists have also performed including Damien Dempsey and Niall Breslin. The festival also gives local talent the opportunity to showcase their music.

Leixlip

Ashtown Castle (Irish: Caisleán Bhaile an Ásaighis) is a tower house in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland.

It was found hidden within the walls of a much larger and more recent Georgian building, the Under Secretary's Lodge also known as Ashtown Lodge, that was being used by the Papal Nuncio until 1978. At that time, the Lodge was deemed structurally irreparable due to dry rot. However, as the building was being demolished, Ashtown Castle was discovered. It has now been restored and forms part of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre.

It is thought to originally date from the 1430s[verification needed], as it is built to dimensions that conform with a government policy of the time who offered £10 to those who built a castle for their own safety. The castle was later incorporated into the construction of Ashtown Lodge which was to serve as the official residence of the Under Secretary from 1782.

Ashtown Castle

Barretstown Castle is a castle in Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare, Ireland. It stands on the site of a late 12th century Anglo-Norman castle.

History
The first historical mention of the place is in a 1547 inquisition held after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when Barretstown Castle was listed as the property of the Archbishop of Dublin, from whom it was promptly confiscated by the Crown. Thereafter the Castle was held by the Eustace family on a series of ""permanent leases.""

In the 17th century Sir Walter Borrowes married a daughter of the earl of Kildare and acquired the estate, and the family retained possession for over 200 years. Members of the family, such as Sir Kildare Borrowes, 5th Baronet, represented Kildare County and Harristown in the former Parliament of Ireland.

Unlike the Eustace baronets of the 16th and 17th centuries, the five Borrowes baronets who spanned the 19th century played no part in public life. This quiet aristocratic reign ended with the flamboyant Sir Kildare, 10th Baronet (1852–1924), whose father Rev. Sir Erasmus, 8th Baronet, had significantly modified the residence in a medieval, romantic, asymmetrical style. In 1918, the Borrowes family having left Ireland, Barretstown was purchased by Sir George Sheppard Murray, a Scotsman who converted the estate into a fine stud farm, and planted many of the exotic trees that dominate the landscape.

In 1962 Elizabeth Arden acquired the castle from the Murray family. Over five years, Arden extensively reconstructed, redecorated, and refurnished the castle. Her influence dominates the look of the house to this day. The door of the castle is reputed to have been painted red after her famous brand of perfume Red Door, and remains so to this day.

After Arden's death in 1967, the international biscuit tycoon Garfield Weston took up residence. Under his ownership the grounds were significantly improved, particularly through the addition of a magnificent lake in front of the castle.

The Weston family, which owns Dublin's famous Brown Thomas department store, presented the estate to the Irish government in 1977, during which time it was used for national and international conferences and seminars, as well as being used as a part of the Irish National Stud.

The Irish government has leased the castle and its grounds to the Barretstown Gang Camp Fund for the next 90 years for a nominal €1.26 per year. Part of Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camps, the Barretstown Gang Camp opened in August 1994, serving 124 children. With the completion of the new medical centre and programme hall, in 1995 the camp served nearly 300 children from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, and Chernobyl disaster areas. In 2009, Barretstown will serve 1900 children from around Europe.

Barretstown Castle

Rathfarnham Castle (Irish: Caisleán Rath Fearnáin) is a 16th-century fortified house in Rathfarnham, South Dublin, Ireland.

Origins
The earlier Irish castle was replaced by the present building built on lands confiscated from the Eustace family of Baltinglass because of their involvement in the Second Desmond Rebellion. The family were Irish-speaking and epitomized the fusion of Gaelic & Norman traditions that defines early modern Irish identity as described in the phrase More Irish than the Irish themselves. The Geraldines defended the Pale from the Irish clans in the nearby Wicklow Mountains. It is believed the present castle was built around 1583 for Archbishop Adam Loftus. Originally a semi-fortified and battlemented structure it underwent extensive alterations in the 18th century.

The castle consisted of a square building four stories high with a projecting tower at each corner, the walls of which were an average of 5 feet (1.5 m) thick. On the ground level are two vaulted apartments divided by a wall nearly 10 feet (3.0 m) thick which rises to the full height of the castle. On a level with the entrance hall are the 18th century reception rooms and above this floor the former ballroom, later converted into a chapel.

Rathfarnham was described as a ""waste village"" when Loftus bought it. His new castle was not long built when in 1600 it had to withstand an attack by the Wicklow clans during the Nine Years' War.

Civil war
Archbishop Loftus left the castle to his son, Dudley and it then passed to his son Adam in 1616. During Adam's ownership, the castle came under siege in the 1641 rebellion. It was able to hold out against the Confederate army when the surrounding country was overrun. Adam Loftus opposed the treaty of cessation in order the stop the fighting between the Irish Confederates and the English Royalists. Consequently, he was imprisoned in Dublin Castle.

During the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars (1641–53), the castle changed hands several times. From 1641 to 1647, it was garrisoned by English Royalist troops. In 1647, Ormonde, commander of the Royalists in Ireland, surrendered Dublin to the English Parliament and Parliamentary troops were stationed at the castle until 1649 when a few days before the Battle of Rathmines, the castle was stormed and taken without a fight by the Royalists as part of the Siege of Dublin. However, the Roundheads re-occupied it after their victory at the Battle of Rathmines. It has also been reported that Oliver Cromwell held council there during his campaign in Ireland before going south to besiege Wexford. Adam Loftus, who recovered his castle and lands under Cromwell, sided with the Parliamentarians and was killed at the Siege of Limerick in 1651.

After the English Civil War, the Loftus family retained ownership of the castle. In 1659, Dr. Dudley Loftus, great grandson of Archbishop Loftus, took over the castle. During his lifetime, Dudley held the posts of Commissioner of Revenue, Judge of the Court of Admiralty, Master in Chancery, representative for Kildare & Wicklow in the Protectorate Parliament and MP for Naas, Bannow and Fethard (Co Wexford).

His body is interred at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The eighteenth century

The property then passed by marriage to Philip Wharton. The young man lost his money in the South Sea Bubble and in 1723 the castle was sold to the Right Hon William Conolly, speaker of the Irish House of Commons for £62,000. In 1742, the castle was sold to Dr. Hoadly, Archbishop of Armagh, and on his death four years later it passed to his son-in-law Bellingham Boyle. In 1767, he sold the property to Nicholas Hume-Loftus, second Earl of Ely, a descendant of Adam Loftus, the original builder of the castle.


Nicholas died within a few years, probably as an indirect result of great hardships which he had suffered in his youth, and the estate passed to his uncle, Hon. Henry Loftus, who was created Earl of Ely in 1771. In commemoration of regaining ownership, the Loftus family constructed another entrance for the castle in the form of a Roman Triumphal Arch. The arch can still be viewed from nearby Dodder Park Road. Henry Loftus, Earl of Ely was responsible for much of the conversion of the medieval fortress into a Georgian mansion and employed renowned architects Sir William Chambers and James 'Athenian' Stuart to carry out these works. The mullioned windows were enlarged and the battlements replaced by a coping with ornamental urns. A semi-circular extension was added to the east side and an entrance porch approached by steps, on the north. The interior was decorated in accordance with the tastes of the period and leading artists, including Angelica Kauffman were employed in the work. Writers of the period who visited the house have left extravagant descriptions of its splendour.

Henry died in 1783 and was succeeded by his nephew Charles Tottenham. He subsequently became Marquess of Ely as a reward for his vote at the time of the Union.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries
In 1812, the family leased the estate to the Ropers and removed their valuable possessions to Loftus Hall in Wexford. The lands and castle were then used for dairy farming and fell into disrepair.

In 1852 it was bought by the Lord Chancellor, Francis Blackburne whose family resided there for three generations. The property developers Bailey & Gibson acquired the castle in 1912 and divided up the estate. The eastern part became the Castle Golf Club, the castle and the southwestern portion were bought in 1913 by the Jesuit Order and the northwestern part was devoted to housing.

The Jesuits are an order renowned for their education and one of them; Father O'Leary S.J. constructed a seismograph. This machine could detect earth tremors and earthquakes from anywhere in the world and for a time, Rathfarnham Castle became a source of earthquake information for the national media.

To the north of the castle was a long vaulted chamber formerly known as Cromwell’s Court or Fort. This was apparently a barn or storehouse erected as part of the castle farm and had narrow loopholes in its 5-foot (1.5 m) thick walls. In 1922, it was incorporated into the new retreat house, to which it formed the ground story and its character concealed from the outside by a uniform covering of cement plaster.

Not far from the Golf Club House was an attractive little temple built of stone and brick, another relic of Lord Ely’s occupation of Rathfarnham. Although rather out of repair, if restored, it would have added much to the charm of this part of the links. Unfortunately, by decision of the committee, it was demolished in 1979.

In 1986, the Jesuits sold Rathfarnham Castle but before leaving, they removed the stained glass windows, made in the famous Harry Clarke studios, from the chapel and donated them to Tullamore Catholic Church which had been destroyed by fire in 1983. The other windows were donated to Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross and Temple Street Children's Hospital, Dublin.

Preservation
The castle was sold to Delaware Properties in 1985 and it was feared that it was facing demolition. After immense public pressure to save the building, it was purchased by the state in 1987 and was declared a National Monument. Currently, by the Office of Public Works, there is an extensive refurbishment going through the castle but it is still open to the public during the summer months (5 May - 12 October).[5] The Castle is presented as a castle undergoing active conservation, where visitors can see, at first hand, tantalising glimpses of layers of its earlier existence uncovered during research.

Rathfarnham Castle

Dunsoghly Castle is a castle and a National Monument in St Margaret's, Ireland.

Location
Dunsoghly Castle is found in St. Margarets, Co Dublin.

History
Dunsoghly Castle was built around 1450 by Sir Thomas Plunket, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and was continuously occupied until the 1870s by descendants of the same family, despite being a cramped Irish castle and uncomfortable by post-medieval standards. The lofty four-storey tower of the castle has tapering corner turrets rising above the parapet.

The roof, which has served as a model for restorations at Bunratty Castle and Rothe House, is arch-braced with four oak principals; on each collar-beam stands a king-post supporting a purlin and cross-pieces below the ridge. The rafters are laid flat rather than on edge as in modern roofs and the framework covered with split laths.

There is a small chapel to the south bearing the year ""1573"" over the door, the Instruments of the Passion and the initials of Sir John Plunket and his third wife Jenet Sarsfield. Sir John was the grandson of Sir Thomas, who built Dunsoghly, and like his grandfather he presided as Chief Justice in one of the courts of common law. Jenet was a much married lady, Sir John being the fifth of her six husbands. On the west and south are remains of earthwork defences put up during the warfare of the 1670s.

Dunsoghly Castle

Dublin Castle (Irish: Caisleán Bhaile Átha Cliath) off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the seat of the United Kingdom government's administration in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland. The Castle served as the seat of English, then later British government of Ireland under the Lordship of Ireland (1171–1541), the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800), and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922).

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, the complex was ceremonially handed over to the newly formed Provisional Government led by Michael Collins.[1]

The castle today is a major tourist attraction and conferencing destination. The building is also used for State dinners (the most recent being for Queen Elizabeth II in 2011) and most significantly, the inauguration of the presidents of Ireland.

Dublin Castle was first founded as a major defensive work by Meiler Fitzhenry on the orders of King John of England in 1204,[2] some time after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169, when it was commanded that a castle be built with strong walls and good ditches for the defence of the city, the administration of justice, and the protection of the King's treasure.[3] Largely complete by 1230, the castle was of typical Norman courtyard design, with a central square without a keep, bounded on all sides by tall defensive walls and protected at each corner by a circular tower. Sited to the south-east of Norman Dublin, the castle formed one corner of the outer perimeter of the city, using the River Poddle as a natural means of defence along two of its sides. The city wall directly abutted the castle's northeast Powder Tower, extending north and westwards around the city before rejoining the castle at its southwestern Bermingham Tower. In 1620 the English-born judge Luke Gernon was greatly impressed by the wall: ""a huge and mighty wall, foursquare, and of incredible thickness"".[4]

The Poddle was diverted into the city through archways where the walls adjoined the castle, artificially flooding the moat of the fortress's city elevations. One of these archways and part of the wall survive buried underneath the 18th-century buildings, and are open to public inspection.

History
Through the Middle Ages the wooden buildings within the castle square evolved and changed, the most significant addition being the Great Hall built of stone and timber, variously used as Parliament house, court of law and banqueting hall. The building survived until 1673, when it was damaged by fire and demolished shortly afterwards. The Court of Castle Chamber, the Irish counterpart to the English Star Chamber, sat in Dublin Castle in a room which was specially built for it about 1570. The Castle sustained severe fire damage in 1684. Extensive rebuilding transformed it from medieval fortress to Georgian palace. No trace of medieval buildings remains above ground level today, with the exception of the great Record Tower (ca. 1228–1230); it is the sole surviving tower of the original fortification, its battlements an early 19th-century addition.[5]

United Irishmen General Joseph Holt, a participant in the 1798 Rising, was incarcerated in the Bermingham Tower before being transported to New South Wales in 1799.

In 1884 officers at the Castle were at the centre of a sensational homosexual scandal incited by the Irish Nationalist politician William O'Brien through his newspaper United Ireland.[6]

In 1907 the Irish Crown Jewels were stolen from the Castle. Suspicion fell upon the Officer of Arms, Sir Arthur Vicars, but rumours of his homosexuality and links to socially important gay men in London, may have compromised the investigation. The jewels have never been recovered.[7]



At the very beginning of the Easter Rising of 1916 a force of twenty-five Irish Citizen Army members were able to seize the entrance and guard-room of the Castle, before reinforcements for the small garrison arrived.[8] During the Anglo-Irish War the Castle was the nerve centre of the British effort against Irish separatism. On the night of Bloody Sunday in 1920, three Irish Republican Army members Dick McKee, Conor Clune and Peadar Clancy, were tortured and killed there.[9][10][11]

When the Irish Free State came into being in 1922, Dublin Castle ceased to function as the administrative seat. It served for some years as temporary Courts of Justice (the Four Courts, the home of the Irish courts system, had been destroyed in 1922). After the courts vacated the premises, the Castle was used for state ceremonies. As President of the Executive Council, Éamon de Valera received credentials there from newly arrived ambassadors to Ireland on behalf of King George V in the 1930s. In 1938, Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as President of Ireland at the Castle. Inaugurations of subsequent presidents took place there in 1945, 1952, 1959, 1966, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1983, 1990, 1997 and 2011. President Erskine Hamilton Childers' lying-in-state took place there in November 1974, as did that of former President Éamon de Valera in September 1975.

The castle is a tourist attraction and, following major refurbishment, is also used as a conference centre. During Ireland's presidencies of the European Union it has been the venue of many meetings of the European Council. The crypt of the Chapel Royal is now used as an arts centre, and occasional concerts are held in the grounds of the Castle. The complex of buildings is usually open to the public, except during state functions.

Dublin Castle is currently maintained by the Office of Public Works, and houses, among other things, offices of the Revenue Commissioners in a 20th-century building at the end of the Castle Yard, some elements of the Office of Public Works itself in an old stables area, and some functions of the Garda Síochána.

The castle complex also hosts the Chester Beatty Library, in a purpose-constructed facility, and the Garda Museum.

Dublin Castle

Killeen Castle (Irish: Caisleán Chillín), located in Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland, is the current construction on a site occupied by a castle since around 1180. The current building is a restoration of a largely 19th century construction, burnt out in 1981. Killeen was built as one of a pair of castles either side of a major roadway north, the other being the extant Dunsany Castle.

History
Cusacks and Plunketts

The original structure at Killeen Castle is said to have been a Norman fortification, perhaps wooden, built for the de Lacy magnates, and held from 1172 by the Cusack family, beginning with Geoffrey de Cusack. The stone castle was built by Geoffrey de Cusack around 1181.[2] The date is carved above the doorway.[3]

An early recorded description of the castle and its interior[3] reads - The date is Aug 1st (the feast of St. Peter's Chains). As we approach the castle we are faced by four tall battlemented towers with five storeys of slit openings linking the curtain walls of the building. The castle is set on a slight mound. We enter by a steep wooden stairway, and find ourselves, having passed through the considerable thickness of the wall from the narrow doorway, into the Great Hall on the first floor. Rushes cover the stone flags, and besides the usual furniture, such as a trestle-table, benches and the straight-backed, carved, oaken armchair of the Lord of the Manor, we note on our left a heavy green and white curtain covering one wall of the Hall. Opposite us with its sloping stone hood is the fireplace with logs burning in the grate. The right hand wall is hung with the Lord's war harness, his morion, hunting trophies and feathered lure used in falconry. It is a costly piece with a perch and gilt borders.

In such surroundings the de Cusacks Lords of Killeen lived, made war, and expanded their fiefdoms for 225 years until the castle passed to the Plunketts through the marriage of Lady Joan de Cusack to Christopher Plunkett of Rathregan in 1399.

The first Plunkett to hold the castle, Sir Christopher, became the first Baron Killeen, and divided his estate between his eldest two sons, the second son taking possession of sister castle, Dunsany, and later becoming the first Lord Dunsany. The elder branch continued as Barons of Killeen, and later Earls of Fingall. The third, Sir Thomas Fitz-Christopher Plunket married heiress Mary Ann Cruice of Rathmore, daughter of Sir Christopher Cruice of Cruicetown, Moydorrah and Rathmore Castle - a crucifix in their honour is located on the demense. The fourth and sixth sons founded other landed houses. Dunsoghly Castle, one of the few intact fifteenth-century castles in Ireland, was built by the family of Sir Robert Plunket, the fourth son, between 1450 and 1480. An additional title, as Baron Fingall, in the United Kingdom peerage, was acquired in 1831. While the titles survived, the Killeens were the premier Catholic peers of Ireland.[1]

The castle was developed over time, and by the fifteenth century, was a mid-size fortified tower house.[citation needed]

The two branches of the original family remained close through the centuries and during the worst of the Penal Laws, the Dunsany branch, having survived transportation to Connacht under Cromwell and other difficulties, converted to the Church of Ireland, and held Killeen in trust for the elder branch, which remained Roman Catholic. Unlike some arrangements of this sort, Killeen was formally returned.[1]

The castle fell into disrepair in the late 17th century, was leased out, and was not restored until around 1779, when parts of the demesne were landscaped and some of the estate features were added.

Significant reworking was carried out from 1803 to 1813 under the supervision of Francis Johnston, and in 1841, much of the castle was demolished and rebuilt (using much existing material) by the 9th Earl, in the style of a small Windsor Castle. The two towers added have the dates 1181 and 1841 inscribed, and at the time of completion, it was said that Killeen had 365 windows.

Killeen Castle (Dunsany)

Dunsany Castle (Irish: Caisleán Dhún Samhnaí), Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland is a modernised Norman castle, started c. 1180 / 1181 by Hugh de Lacy, who also commissioned Killeen Castle, nearby, and the famous Trim Castle. It is possibly Ireland's oldest home in continuous occupation, having been held by the Cusack family and their descendants by marriage, the Plunketts, to the present day. The castle is surrounded by its demesne, the inner part of the formerly extensive Dunsany estate. The demesne holds an historic church (still consecrated), a working walled garden, a walled farm complex, an ice house, various dwellings and other features.


History
The castle was built, probably in succession to basic ""motte"" fortifications, remnants of which can still be seen to the left and right in front of it, in the period 1180 – 1200, construction being thought to have begun in 1180 / 1181. Foundations and the lower parts of the four main towers are thought to be original, and some interior spaces, notably an old kitchen, but much additional work has been carried out, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the current castle is more than three times the size of the original.

The castle, along with Killeen Castle, was held by the Cusacks, initially on behalf of the de Lacys, and passed by marriage in the early 15th century to the Plunketts. Originally, it and Killeen lay on a single estate but the first generation of Plunketts gave Killeen to the eldest son, and Dunsany to the younger, Christopher, following which the estate was divided, and the Castle descended in the hands of the Barons of Dunsany, who enjoyed almost uninterrupted ownership and control, aside from issues around Oliver Cromwell's operations in Ireland (the then Lady Dunsany defended the castle against an initial approach but the family were later forced out, some dying on the way to Connaught), and the aftermath of some other troubles between Ireland and England. They were cousins of Saint Oliver Plunket.

The Dunsany Estate was reduced by the operation of the Land Acts in the late 19th and early 20th century but the castle remained surrounded by its original demesne, and other estate lands remain around the district, some adjacent to the demesne and some remote.

Much of the work of the writer Lord Dunsany was done at the Castle, notably in a room in one of the building's towers. The author commissioned a two-storey extension to one side of the rear of the castle in 1910. Built in an ""Arts & Crafts"" style by 1914, the extension contains a spacious billiard room, two bedrooms, and other facilities.

The dower house and its lands were sold in the latter half of the 20th century.

Since the 1990s, work has been carried out, with some attendant publicity, to restore some of the Dunsany properties in the demesne, the hamlet at Dunsany crossroads, and in Trim.

The family's other castle, the largest in Ireland but a ruin, Trim Castle, was transferred to the State in the 1990s.