Luttrellstown Castle

Luttrellstown Castle stands at Kellystown, Castleknock, Ireland, and was established by members of the Luttrell family under the English crown.

The land that became the estate was granted about 1210 to Sir Geoffrey de Luterel by King John; Sir Geoffrey served the king on missions to Ireland between 1204 and 1216. The demesne originally covered the whole townland known as Woodlands in the civil parish of Clonsilla.

Work on the present castellated house began in the early fifteenth century, around 1420, under Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, the fifth Lord Luttrell, who was born about 1385. The property remained in Luttrell hands for many generations. Members of the family held important offices: Robert Luttrell served as treasurer of St Patrick’s Cathedral and as Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1235 to 1245; Sir Thomas Luttrell was Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas from 1534 to 1554.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the family figures included Colonel Henry Luttrell, born circa 1655, who received forfeited estates after the Siege of Limerick and was assassinated in October 1717. Later Luttrells attained peerages, among them Colonel Simon Luttrell, created first Earl of Carhampton, and Henry Lawes Luttrell, second Earl of Carhampton (1743–1821). Henry Lawes Luttrell is recorded as having sold Luttrellstown Castle in 1800. In 1811 the property was bought by the publisher Luke White, who renamed the estate Woodlands. The estate then passed to White’s descendants, who became the Barons Annaly, and a later Lord Annaly restored the building’s name as Luttrell Castle.

Queen Victoria visited the house in 1844 and again in 1900; during the 1900 visit she drank tea beside a waterfall, an event commemorated by Lord Annaly with an obelisk made from six blocks of granite quarried in the Dublin mountains. In 1915 a Lord Annaly sold the house to a Major Hamilton; he died in 1918 and left the property to his widow. In 1927 Ernest Guinness purchased the estate as a wedding gift for his daughter Aileen Guinness, after which the castle hosted hunt balls and large social events. The house contents were dispersed at a sale held by Christie’s of London in September 1983. The estate itself was sold that year to the Swiss consortium Primwest. In 2006 the property changed hands to JP McManus, John Magnier and Aidan Brooks, and in 2007 more than €20 million was invested in major upgrades, including substantial improvements to the golf facilities.