Carton House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carton House is one of Ireland's greatest stately homes and one time ancestral seat of the Earls of Kildare and Dukes of Leinster. Located 14 miles west of Dublin, in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland, the Carton demesne runs to 1,100 acres (4.5 km²). For two hundred years it possessed the finest example in Ireland of a Georgian-created parkland landscape. In the 2000s it was controversially turned into two golf courses and hotel complex, an act described in the Irish senate as "desecration".
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[edit] Beginning of the Carton demense
With a history spanning more than eight centuries, Carton Demesne has seen many changes in its lifetime. The Carton Estate first came into the ownership of the FitzGerald family shortly after Maurice FitzGerald played an active role in the capture of Dublin by the Normans in 1170 and was rewarded by being appointed Lord of Maynooth, an area covering townlands which include Carton.
His son became Baron Offaly in 1205 and his descendant John FitzGerald, became Earl of Kildare in 1315. Under the eighth earl the FitzGerald family reached pre-eminence as the virtual rulers of Ireland between 1477 and 1513.
But the eighth earl’s grandson, the eloquently titled “Silken Thomas” was executed in 1537, with his five uncles, for leading an uprising against the English. Although the FitzGeralds subsequently regained their land and titles, they did not regain their position at the English Court until the 18th Century when Robert, the 19th Earl of Kildare, became a noted stateman.
[edit] House at Carton
The first record of a house at Carton was in the 17th Century when William Talbot, recorder of the city of Dublin was given a lease of the lands by the 14th Earl of Kildare and is thought to have built a house here at this time. The house and lands were forfeited to the crown in 1691 and in 1703 sold to Major General Richard Ingoldsby, Master General of the Ordnance. In 1739, the lease was sold back to the 19th Earl of Kildare who employed Richard Castles to build the existing house. This was the same year the FitzGerald family bought Frescati House. Castles was also responsible for some other great Irish Houses including Westport House, Powerscourt House and in 1745, Leinster House which he built for the FitzGeralds.
In 1747 James the 20th Earl of Kildare and from 1766 first Duke of Leinster, married Lady Emily Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond and great–grand-daughter of the English King Charles II.
Lady Emily played an important role in the development of the house and estate as it is today. She created the Chinese room (bed-room to Queen Victoria) and decorated the famous Shell Cottage on the estate with shells from all round the world. One of Emily’s 23 children was the famous Irish Patriot Lord Edward FitzGerald, leader of the 1798 rebellion.
Carton remained unaltered until 1815 when the 3rd Duke decided to sell Leinster House to the Royal Dublin Society and make Carton his principle residence. He employed Richard Morrison to enlarge and re-model the house. Morrison replaced the curved colonnades with straight connecting links to obtain additional rooms including the famous Dining room. At this time the entrance to the house was moved to the north side.
Carton remained in the control of the FitzGeralds until the 1920s when the 7th Duke sold his birth right to a money lender Sir Harry Mallaby Deeley in order to pay off gambling debts of £67,500.
He was third on line to succeed and so did not think he would ever inherit, but one of his brothers died in the war and another of a brain tumour and so Carton was lost to the Fitzgeralds.
In 1923 a local unit of the IRA, as part of their burning of big houses of Protestant families, went to Carton with the attention of burning it down. But they were stopped when a member of the FitzGerald family brought a large painting of Lord Edward FitzGerald to the door and pointed out that they would be burning the house of a revered Irish patriot.
[edit] House sold in 1949
Lord Brocket, whose principal residence was Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, England, purchased the house in 1949 and in 1977 his son The Hon. David Nall-Cain, who had by then moved to the Isle of Man, sold the house to its present owners Lee and Mary Mallaghan.
[edit] Turning house & grounds into a hotel & golf courses
Since 1977, Carton estate has been the property of the Mallaghan family. In the 1980s and 1990s the Irish government came under sustained politicial pressure to buy the historic house and its grounds, the best preserved set of 18th century parkland in Ireland. However the Government declined to do so.
[edit] House as film set
The house was used as a film location by many film makers and broadcasters. Two of the many films made there were Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon in 1975 and The Big Red One in 1980. They starred Ryan O'Neal (as an 18th century Irish adventurer, with a soundtrack by The Chieftains) and Lee Marvin respectively.
[edit] Controversial hotel and golf courses
In the 2000s the demense underwent a highly controversial development that was criticised by the Irish Georgian Society and Án Taisce. The house itself had an extension built on, while houses were built in part of the grounds. Even more controversially, its famed historic parkland was turned into two golf course designed by Mark O'Meara and Colin Montgomerie. Án Taisce called the replacement of the historic grounds by golf courses as "far the worst development affecting a nationally important parkland landscape in Ireland" while Senator David Norris spoke in Seanad Éireann of what was done to the house and demense as desecration. [1]
The Montgomerie course was recently ranked 10th in Ireland by Golf Digest magazine, the world's largest golf publication. This year the magazine introduced its Planet Golf rankings in which it lists the top courses in 184 countries. Carton House Golf Club was the venue to host the Nissan Irish Open in 2005 and The Montgomerie is the course on which the championship will be played. Future developments at Carton may include the construction of the Golfing Union of Ireland Head Office, National Golf Academy and a 160 bedroom luxury hotel. Conservationists have however promised to fight any more of what they view as the destruction of a unique historic environment to facilitate games of golf.
