Lismore Castle
| Lismore Castle | ||
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 Lismore Castle 2006 |
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| Alternative name (s): | Caisleán to Leasa Mhóir Caisleán Leasa Móire |
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| Creation time : | 1185 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | restored | |
| Standing position : | Irish nobility | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone | |
| Place: | Lismore | |
| Geographical location | 52 ° 8 '26.6 " N , 7 ° 55' 57.7" W | |
| Height: | 36 m ASLTemplate: height / unknown reference | |
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Lismore Castle ( Irish Caisleán to Leasa Mhóir even Caisleán Leasa moiré ) is a hilltop castle in Lismore in Ireland County Waterford . It is the Irish residence of the Dukes of Devonshire . First it belonged to the Earls of Desmond and from 1753 to the Cavendish family . In the middle of the 19th century, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire , had it rebuilt for the most part in a neo-Gothic style.
Early history
Lismore Castle was built in 1185 as a sister castle of Ardfinnan Castle on behalf of Prince Johann to monitor the river crossing. Originally, the Lismore Monastery, an important abbey and teaching facility, was located here since the beginning of the 7th century. It was still an ecclesiastical center when the English King Henry II visited it in 1171 and, except for a short time after 1185 when the king's son John had his "Castellum" built there, it was always the residence of the local bishop. It was owned by the Earls of Desmond, whose lands were divided after the assassination of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond , in 1583 during the plantation .
In 1589, Lismore Castle was first leased and then bought by Sir Walter Raleigh . During his imprisonment for treason in 1602, Raleigh sold the property to another notorious colonial adventurer, Richard Boyle , who was later named 1st Earl of Cork .
Earls of Cork and Earls of Burlington
Boyle came to Ireland in 1588 with just £ 27 in his pocket and amassed an extraordinary fortune as a result. After purchasing Lismore Castle, he made the castle his headquarters and had it converted into a grand residence with impressive gable-fronted buildings on either side of the courtyard. He also had a crenellated , perimeter wall and gatehouse built called the Riding Gate. The parade rooms were decorated with foliage stucco ceilings, picture knitwear , embroidered silks and velvet. Robert Boyle , the "father of modern chemistry", was born here in 1626 , the 14th of the earl's 15 children. The castle fell to another Richard Boyle , 4th Earl of Cork and 3rd Earl of Burlington, who had a significant influence on Georgian architecture .
Lismore Castle played a role in the Cromwell's Wars when, in 1645, a Catholic force under the command of Lord Castlehaven looted Lismore town and castle. Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Cork , (1612-1694) had a number of restoration works carried out to make the castle habitable again after it was destroyed, but neither he nor any of his successors ever lived at Lismore Castle again.
Dukes of Devonshire
The castle (and other Boyle estates such as Chiswick House , Burlington House , Bolton Abbey and Londesborough Hall ) was given to the Cavendish family in 1753 through the marriage of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire and later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , to Charlotte Boyle ( 1731–1754), daughter and heiress of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork. Her son, the 5th Duke of Devonshire (1748-1811), had improvements made to Lismore Castle, including the bridge over the Munster Blackwater River in 1775, designed by the Cork architect Thomas Ivory .
The 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858), called "Bachelor Duke", was responsible for the current appearance of the castle. He had it converted into a "quasi-feudal, more than royal fortress" as soon as he inherited it from his father in 1811, for which he commissioned the architect William Atkinson, Lismore Castle with blocks that were broken in Devonshire and brought to Ireland by ship , rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style in the years 1812–1822. The castle was always the preferred home of the Bachelor Duke, but with age, his affection turned into passion. In 1850 he commissioned the architect Sir Joseph Paxton , the designer of the Crystal Palace , to make large-scale improvements and additions to the castle, so much so that the castle's skyline today is largely Paxton's work. At that time, John Gregory Crace of London , the leading neo-Gothic cabinet maker, and his partner, the leading architect Augustus Pugin , were commissioned to convert the ruinous chapel of the old bishop's palace into a medieval-style banquet hall with huge late-Gothic stained glass windows, choir stalls and Gothic stencils on the walls and remodel roof beams. The mantelpiece, exhibited in the Great Exhibition's Medieval Courtyard in 1851 , was also designed by Pugin (and Myers), but was originally intended for Horstead Place in Sussex . Its owner refused it because it was too fine and it was eventually bought for Lismore Castle. The original emblems of the Barchard family were then replaced by the current Irish inscription "Cead Mille Failte" (Eng. Hundred Thousand Welcome). Pugin also designed other mantels and fixtures for the castle, and after his death in 1851, Crace provided more fixtures in his style.
In 1858 the Cavendish family donated a new bridge over the Munster Blackwater to replace the old one built in 1775. This new construction corresponded in design to the bridges by Charles Tarrant and was built by EP Nagle and CH Hunt.
After the death of the "Bachelor Duke" Lismore Castle remained largely unchanged. The younger son of the 9th Duke of Devonshire , Lord Charles Arthur Francis Cavendish, who married Adele Astaire , the sister and former dance partner of Fred Astaire , settled there. After her husband's death in 1944 and her remarriage in 1947, Adele used the castle until shortly before her own death in 1981. Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire , only used the castle for short visits, usually over Easter. In the last few years he owned it, it was rented out to short-term guests.
The 12th Duke of Devonshire inherited the title in 2004 but continued to live on his family's Chatsworth estate . His son and future heir, William Cavendish, has an apartment in the castle. He was entrusted with the management and in 2005 he turned the derelict west wing into a temporary art gallery called Lismore Castle Arts . The rest of the interior spaces are not open to the public, but can be rented by groups of up to 23 participants.
The castle has gardens that are open to the public. The upper garden is an enclosed garden from the 17th century, while most of the informal, lower garden was designed in the 19th century. Under Lord Burlington the plantations were expanded and contemporary sculptures were added, e.g. B. Work by Antony Gormley , Marzia Colonna, and Eilis O'Connell .
Individual evidence
- ^ County Waterford - Cavendish Bridge (Lismore Bridge), Lismore, County Waterford . In: National Registry of Architectural Heritage . Retrieved May 8, 2019.
- ^ Sarah Giles: Fred Astaire - his friends talk . Doubleday, 1998. ISBN 0-385-24741-9 . P. 90.
- ^ Mary Leland: Lismore Castle garden gets royal treatment . In: The Irish Times . April 24, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
- ^ Lismore Castle, Lismore, County Waterford . In: National Registry of Architectural Heritage . Retrieved May 9, 2019.
swell
- Terence R Smyth: Irish Country Houses . 1904.
- Megan Aldrich: John Gregory Crace (1809-1889) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.
