Ballygally Castle
Coordinates: 54 ° 53 '56 " N , 5 ° 51' 40" W.
Ballygally Castle is a castle in the Northern Irish village of Ballygally ( Irish Baile Geithligh ) . It is located about 5 kilometers north of the town of Larne .
history
The castle was built in 1625 by a Scotsman named James Shaw and his wife Isabella Brisbane. The couple were originally from Greenock , immigrated to Ireland in 1606 and settled in Ballygally in 1613. A short time later , Shaw leased land for £ 24 a year from the Earl of Antrim on which he erected the building. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641 , the Irish garrison stationed in Glenarm tried several times to take the castle, but always failed. The building was expanded in the 18th century. It remained in the possession of the Shaw family until 1799, when William Shaw had to sell all properties. The castle went to the Agnew family for £ 15,400. After the building served as a Coast Guard station for a while, Rev. Classon Porter and his family moved in and lived there for several years. Eventually the entrepreneur Cyril Lord bought the castle and turned it into a hotel in the 1950s. In 1966 he sold it to the Hastings Hotels Group for £ 40,000. The hotel has been awarded four stars by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board . In 2007 and 2014 it was completely renovated .
Building
Architecturally, the castle has clear influences from Scotland and France . The high walls and steep roofs with skylights and bay windows were mainly built with building materials from the surrounding area. The walls are about 1.5 meters thick and have loopholes . The building is embellished by numerous consoles , and the Tourelles with their conical roofs are visible from afar. Originally there was an inner courtyard and, surrounded by high walls, an outer courtyard. In the courtyard of the building there were stables, a small brewery and a dovecote . A small watercourse was led through the entrance hall to ensure the water supply for the residents in the event of a siege . The hotel in the castle today has 54 rooms. It is the only 17th century building in Northern Ireland that is still used for residential purposes.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f The History of Ballygally Castle of 1625. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Hastings Hotels Group Ltd., archived from the original on October 19, 2014 ; accessed on October 11, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Cleburne Huston: Bold legacy; the story of the Houston-Huston ancestors: 1150 to 1800 . Texian Press, Waco, TX 1968, OCLC 449730 , p. 87 ( Google Books [accessed October 11, 2014]).
- ^ Brendan O'Neill (Ed.): Irish Castles and Historic Houses . With an introduction by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London 2002, ISBN 1-84067-417-2 , pp. 18 .
- ^ Entry of the Ballygally Castle Hotel on the homepage of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board
