Huntington Castle, Clonegal

Huntington Castle in Clonegal was built in the 15th century by the Irish Caviness clan as a tower house serving as the chieftain’s residence and a small garrison. The property later passed into the hands of Baron Esmonde and became associated with the Esmonde family.

In the early 1600s the castle served as a military support point during the English conquest and the Plantation of Ireland. During the 1641 rising it was taken by rebels who raised the flag of the Irish Confederation, and in 1650 Oliver Cromwell’s troops stormed and captured the building during their march to Kilkenny.

The Esmonde family laid out gardens at the site in the 17th century. In the 19th century a water-turbine installation supplied the castle with electrical power; one dated account gives 1888. The castle remains in private ownership. In the 20th century it was used as a filming location for Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Its cellar and dungeon have been used by the Fellowship of Isis for religious rites since 1976, and the Solas festival took place there in August 2008, founded by Olivia Robertson, her brother Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, and his wife Pamela Durdin-Robertson. Local tradition records numerous legends of druids’ ghosts around the castle, credited with fog, fire, bloody rain, causing death, human sacrifices, and with repeatedly saving the castle from siege.