homes historical kildare

This gaunt-looking mansion with a 380-foot long frontage beside the road was begun in 1636-7 by Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1633 to 1640. He planned it as a summer residence for himself and as a palace in which Charles 1 could live if and when he came to visit Ireland. It never served their purpose, however, because it was left unfinished when Strafford was called to London and beheaded in 1641. The eastern portion may have been temporarily finished as it...

It may justly be said that Castletown is one of the largest and most splendid country houses in Ireland, but it's also one of the most important for it introduced sophisticated Palladianism from the continent and brought about a revolution in Irish architecture....

This is a splendid building incorporating the old castle of the Wogan-Brownes, several of whom were distinguished soldiers in European armies. Clongowes was opened as a boys college by the society of Jesus in 1814. For a time in the 1890's James Joyce was a pupil and re-created his experience of student life there and at Belvedere College in his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Some remains of the Pale, the fortification that once marked the boundary of English influence in Ireland,...