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Mitchelstown Castle | |
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Location | Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland. |
Coordinates | 52°16′20″N08°16′48″W / 52.27222°N 8.28000°W |
Built | 19th century |
Built for | 3rd Earl of Kingston |
Demolished | 1920's |
Architect | James and George Pain. |
Mitchelstown Castle, the former home of the Anglo Irish Earls of Kingston, was located in the north County Cork town of Mitchelstown in Ireland.
White Knights, Dark Earls is to date the most extensive published account of Mitchelstown Castle, which was the biggest neo-Gothic house in Ireland. A castle was first built at Mitchelstown in the 15th century by the White Knights of Mitchelstown, from whom, through marriage, it passed to the King family, Barons and Earls of Kingston. James, 4th Baron Kingston, extensively refurbished and modernised the castle in the 1730s. After his death in 1761, the castle passed to his granddaughter, Caroline Fitzgerald. She married her cousin Robert King, Viscount Kingsborough, who was, from 1797, the 2nd Earl of Kingston. The Kingsboroughs demolished most of the old Mitchelstown Castle in the 1770s and incorporated what remained into a new Palladian mansion, described as a 'house with wings'.They employed the young Mary Wollstonecraft as governess to their three children
In 1823, after his succession, their son, George, 3rd Earl of Kingston, demolished the Palladian house and replaced it with a new castle designed by James and George Richard Pain. [1] It had 60 principal and 20 minor bedrooms, a 100-foot-long (30 m) gallery, three libraries, morning room, dining room (which could seat 100 guests at one sitting) and various other facilities. [2]
Mitchelstown Castle was the biggest neo-Gothic house in Ireland, cost £100,000 to build [3] and became the 'fashion statement' of its time. It inspired other major Irish castles, such as Strancally Castle (County Waterford) and Dromoland Castle for Lord Inchiquin.
The 100,000-acre Mitchelstown estate ran into considerable financial difficulties, which, after the Great Famine of 1845–51, forced its owners to sell 70,000 acres (280 km2) in the Landed Estates Court.[ citation needed ] Further difficulties arose as a result of internal family squabbling, legal disputes and the Land War of the 1880s, in which the estate played a prominent part.[ citation needed ]
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source .(April 2016) |
In June 1922, the castle was forcibly occupied by the Irish Republican Army. Then owner, William Downes Webber (second husband of Anna, Dowager Countess of Kingston), his relatives and servants were 'evicted' to houses in nearby King Square. Over the next few weeks the castle was held by republicans, who appeared to be preparing it for some kind of siege. However, in early August, the contents of the building were stolen by some republicans, including paintings by Thomas Gainsborough and William Beechey, as well as silver, furniture, wall hangings, and mantlepieces.
On 12 August 1922, Mitchelstown Castle was burned on the orders of a local republican leader, P. J. Luddy, whose father and grandfather had been middlemen on the Kingston estate. At the same time, the military barracks at Fermoy, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Kilworth were burned, as well as the military hospital in Fermoy, Mitchelstown workhouse, Mitchelstown RIC barracks and the railway viaduct in Mallow.
Afterwards, William Downes Webber sought compensation from the Irish Free State totalling £149,000 for rebuilding and £18,000 for contents. He intended to rebuild if sufficient compensation was provided. After his death in 1924, Colonel W.A. King-Harman pursued the claim in the Irish courts. Judge Kenny, in the Irish High Court in 1926, stated that the destruction of Mitchelstown Castle had been an act of wanton destruction which had no military purpose. He awarded £27,500 for the building and the entire £18,000 requested for the contents. Most of this was used to build replacement properties in Dublin as King-Harman decided that the award was too small a sum to rebuild the castle.
The stones of Mitchelstown Castle were subsequently sold to the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray Abbey, County Waterford, who used them to build a new abbey. [4]
In the 1940s, Mitchelstown Co-operative Agricultural Society built a milk processing factory on the site of the castle, which it had purchased together with some of the demesne lands that surrounded it. The site is now owned by Dairygold Co-op.
The proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft [5] was governess there to the children of the household, including Margaret King, later Countess Mount Cashell, to whom Percy Bysshe Shelley dedicated his poem, A Sensitive Plant. [6] Other notable members of the King family included Viscount Kingsborough, author of Antiquities of Mexico .
Famous guests at Mitchelstown Castle included George Bernard Shaw [ citation needed ], Arthur Young [ citation needed ], Elizabeth Bowen [7] and Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau [ citation needed ].
Mitchelstown is a town in County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 3,740. Mitchelstown is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains, 12 km south-west of the Mitchelstown Caves, 28 km from Cahir, 50 km from Cork, 59 km from Limerick and 10 km from Fermoy. The River Gradoge runs by the town into the River Funshion, which in turn is a tributary of the River Blackwater. The town is best known as a centre for cheese production. Mitchelstown is within the Cork East Dáil constituency.
Mallow is a town in County Cork, Ireland, approximately thirty-five kilometres north of Cork. Mallow is in the barony of Fermoy.
Earl of Kingston is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1768 for Edward King, 1st Viscount Kingston. The Earl holds the subsidiary titles Baron Kingston, of Rockingham in the County of Roscommon, Viscount Kingston, of Kingsborough in the County of Sligo, Baron Erris, of Boyle in the County of Roscommon, and Viscount Lorton, of Boyle in the County of Roscommon, also in the Peerage of Ireland. He is also a baronet in the Baronetage of Ireland. Between 1821 and 1869 the earls also held the title Baron Kingston, of Mitchelstown in the County of Cork, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Shanballymore is a small village in north County Cork, Ireland. It neighbours the towns of Doneraile, Kildorrery and Castletownroche, and is off the main route from Mallow to Mitchelstown. Shanballymore is part of the Cork East Dáil constituency.
William Fanaghan Lynch was an officer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence of 1919–1921. During much of the Irish Civil War, he was chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army. On 10 April 1923, Lynch was killed whilst trying to escape an encirclement by Free State troops in south Tipperary.
Clondulane is a village in north County Cork, Ireland, 3.5m east of Fermoy, just off the Main Fermoy-Dungarvan Road. Originally built as a camp for the workers of a Cork Milling Company grain mill, it now has a population of over 400. Clondulane is part of the Cork East Dáil constituency.
The Book of Lismore, also known as the Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach, is a late fifteenth-century Gaelic manuscript that was created at Kilbrittain in County Cork, Ireland, for Fínghean Mac Carthaigh, Lord of Carbery (1478–1505). Defective at beginning and end, 198 leaves survive today, containing a miscellany of religious and secular texts written entirely in Irish.
Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough was an Irish antiquarian who sought to prove that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a Lost Tribe of Israel. His principal contribution was in making available facsimiles of ancient documents and some of the earliest explorers' reports on pre-Columbian ruins and Maya civilisation.
General Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton, styled The Honourable from 1797 to 1800, was an Anglo-Irish peer and politician. He was notable for his strong support for anti-Catholic policies and his close association with the Orange Order.
Tallow is a town, civil parish and townland in County Waterford, Ireland. Tallow is in the province of Munster near the border between County Cork and County Waterford and situated on a small hill just south of the River Bride.
Stephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount Cashell, styled Lord Kilworth until 1822, was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and politician who spent much of his life in what is now Canada.
Robert Henry King, 4th Earl of Kingston, styled The Honourable Robert King until 1837 and Viscount Kingsborough between 1837 and 1839, was an Irish peer, soldier and Whig politician.
James Pain was an English architect. Born into a family of English architects, his grandfather was William Pain, his father James Pain and his brother George Richard Pain. James Pain served as an apprentice to the architect John Nash of London. James and George Richard were commissioned by the Board of First Fruits to design churches and glebe houses in Ireland. In 1833, James Pain became one of the four principal architects of the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He settled in Limerick, Ireland. Many of his designs were produced in collaboration with his brother George Richard who practised in Cork.
Colonel Richard Fitzgerald was an Irish Member of Parliament.
Margaret King (1773–1835), also known as Margaret King Moore, Lady Mount Cashell and Mrs Mason, was an Anglo-Irish hostess, and a writer of female-emancipatory fiction and health advice. Despite her wealthy aristocratic background, she had republican sympathies and advanced views on education and women's rights, shaped in part by having been a favoured pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft. Settling in Italy in later life, she reciprocated her governess's care by offering maternal aid and advice to Wollstonecraft's daughter Mary Shelley and her travelling companions, husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and stepsister Claire Clairmont. In Pisa, she continued the study of medicine which she had begun in Germany and published her widely read Advice to Young Mothers, as well as a novel, The Sisters of Nansfield: A Tale for Young Women.
James King, 5th Earl of Kingston, styled The Honourable James King between 1839 and 1867, was an Irish peer.
Stephen Moore, 1st Earl Mount Cashell PC, styled The Honourable Stephen Moore between 1764 and 1766 and known as The Viscount Mount Cashell between 1766 and 1781, was an Irish landowner and politician.
Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mount Cashell, styled Lord Kilworth between 1781 and 1790, was an Anglo-Irish politician.
George King, 3rd Earl of Kingston, styled Viscount Kingsborough from 1797 to 1799, was an Irish nobleman.
Condons and Clangibbon is a historical barony in County Cork, Ireland.