Glin Castle: A Georgian Country House in Ireland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Ireland
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Irish
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page8 sections
History
Glin Castle is a Georgian country house in Glin, Ireland, built for the FitzGerald family around 1780 along the River Shannon. It replaced an earlier tower house and remains associated with the hereditary title of the Knight of Glin, while the FitzGerald estate has remained in the family for more than 700 years.
FitzGerald settlement and the Knight of Glin
The FitzGerald family first settled in the area during the thirteenth century, following the Anglo-Norman invasion, the conquest and settlement of parts of Ireland by forces from England and Wales. Their initial base was nearby Shanid Castle. During the fourteenth century, the Lord of Desmond, the leading lord of the Desmond lordship in southwestern Ireland, granted an illegitimate son hereditary knighthood of Glin. The new Knight established a castle in the village, making it the permanent seat of the title.
Conflict and the move to the present house
The earlier castle faced repeated attacks during the Desmond Rebellions, sixteenth-century uprisings against English authority in Munster, and during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the seventeenth-century parliamentary reconquest. It was also attacked during the Jacobite risings, campaigns supporting James II and his successors, and under the Penal Laws, restrictions imposed primarily against Catholics and other religious groups in Ireland. In 1601, an English army besieged the castle and kidnapped the Knight’s son.
By the late seventeenth century, the earlier castle had been abandoned, and the FitzGerald family moved into an adjacent thatched longhouse. In the 1780s, John Bateman FitzGerald, the 23rd Knight of Glin, married Margaretta Maria Fraunceis Gwyn. He used her dowry to build the present house, replacing the earlier tower house of the same name. Neo-classical elements were added later.
Twentieth-century and family history
During the Irish Civil War in 1923, a group of Sinn Féin members, associated with the Irish nationalist political movement, attacked the castle. In 1993, the FitzGerald family converted the building into a hotel to help finance its upkeep, but the hotel closed in 2008.
Desmond FitzGerald, the 29th Knight of Glin, died without a male heir in 2011. Lady FitzGerald offered the castle at auction through Christie’s in 2015, but it did not sell. Catherine FitzGerald, the last Knight’s daughter, and her husband, Dominic West, later bought the property to retain it within the family. Glin Castle is a protected structure, an Irish legal designation for a building with special architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social, or technical interest.
Remains
Glin Castle is a late eighteenth-century Georgian country house beside the River Shannon in Glin, County Limerick. Its present form combines Georgian architecture, the styles associated with the reigns of the four British kings named George, with later Neoclassical elements influenced by ancient Greek and Roman forms. The house occupies the place of an earlier tower house associated with the Knight of Glin, while a group of estate buildings extends the historic setting around it.
Present Georgian house
The main house was built at approximately 1780 for John Bateman FitzGerald, replacing the earlier tower house of the same name. Its principal architectural character is Georgian, with Neo-classical additions made later. The building survives as the FitzGerald family home and has also been adapted for other uses, including a period as a hotel between 1993 and 2008.
Earlier residences
The earlier castle stood within the village of Glin and served as the permanent seat of the Knight of Glin after the title was established in the fourteenth century. It was later abandoned. The family then occupied an adjacent thatched longhouse before the construction of the present country house.
Estate buildings
Buildings added to the estate during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries included a gate lodge, a small dwelling near an estate entrance, together with agricultural outbuildings, a gatehouse, and follies. These structures formed part of the wider estate associated with the Georgian house.
Nearby sites
