Eoin MacNeill: Taking Refuge at Orlagh House Eoin MacNeill was a scholar and a rebel who ignited a national fascination with Ireland’s past. He championed the Irish language, and as historian Francis John Byrne put it, “dragged Celtic Ireland practically […]
Jackie Gordon: A Woman Who Would Not Be Wronged Jackie Gordon, the lively, spirited daughter of Charles Gordon of Cluny Castle, was not one to give up what she believed to be hers by right. Despite another young woman’s snide […]
The Knights Templar: The Monkish Knights of Sligo On the ground of Temple House, you will find the ruins of a thousand-year-old fortress order belonging to the warrior monks who once presided over the green, abundant fields of County Sligo. […]
Anthony Woodville of Middleton Castle, Part I: An Upstart and a Model of Chivalry The high nobility dismissed the Woodvilles as a provincial family of little consequence. The Woodville matriarch, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, had blood of the bluest blue; yet […]
An English Lady in the Roaring Twenties: The Honorable Mrs. Richard Norton Jean Mary Kinloch made her debut in London in 1916 while World War I was still raging across the channel. She was the daughter of Sir David Kinloch, […]
Young Dunksy and Oscar Wilde: Friendship and Conversion From an early age, Oswald Hunter Blair had an earnest, spiritual inclination. He read the romantic adventure stories of Sir Walter Scott for hours on end, forever fascinated by Scott’s descriptions of […]
Shipwreck: Disaster Strikes off the Coast of Dunskey Castle Sir Edward Oswald Hunter Blair and his young wife, Elizabeth Wauchope, married at a small church in Edinburgh on June 1, 1850. Edward and Elizabeth eagerly escaped to his family home […]
The Matriarch of Cluny Castle (1282-1323) Mary Bruce was supposed to be safe at Kildrommey, her brother’s only fortress. Her brother was the rebel king of the Scots who had seized the throne and dared to challenge England for his […]
The Spirits of Dunskey Castle The sun of the Scottish Enlightenment broke slowly in the 18th century. While leading intellectuals in Edinburgh denounced religion and superstition alike, belief in witches, demons, and a devil who walked among us died slowly […]
Thomas Bellingham and the Protestant elite gained power in Ireland during the rule of Cromwell in the late 1600s by displacing Catholic landowners. In 1649, Irish Catholics rose up and murdered the Protestant landowners sparking violence. Thomas Bellingham’s father was rewarded with an estate in County Louth, during Cromwell’s Conquest of Ireland, where they constructed Bellingham Castle. When William and Mary, the Protestant king and queen, took the throne, Catholic Jacobites attacked the Protestant elite, burning Bellingham Castle in an attempt to regain power. Thomas Bellingham joined the king’s army in the Battle of Boyne and his knowledge of the terrain helped give William and Mary the upper hand and ensured victory for the Protestants. The Battle of Boyne marked the last significant challenge to Protestant Ascendancy that defined Irish life for centuries. Thomas Bellingham rebuilt his castle as a symbol of Protestant power and Protestants built monuments to commemorate their victory. When the Irish War of Independence broke out, Catholics tore down the monuments in an act of defiance.
Storied Collection
