No. 14095
Moyry Castle
United Kingdom
CastleIntact17th century
No. 50011
Manor house · United Kingdom
Tandragee Castle
Manor houseRuinPartially restored
No. 50011 · 54.354 N, 6.417 W
Quick summary
Tandragee Castle is a manor house in United Kingdom, listed as reference No. 50011.
Tandragee Castle is a manor house in United Kingdom with origins associated with the 17th century.
See all castles in United KingdomTandragee Castle stands in Tandragee, United Kingdom; the earliest recorded fortress on the site was established by the O’Hanlon clan.
Before the seventeenth century the place served as an O’Hanlon stronghold. During the Plantation of Ulster the estate passed into English hands. In 1610 Sir Oliver St. John, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, took control and rebuilt the native stronghold. Ownership then passed within the St John family, with Sir John St. John recorded in 1630 and Henry St John of Tandragee named in 1648.
Fighting during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 saw the O’Hanlons try to recover their lands, and the castle was put beyond use in that conflict. The building lay in ruin for roughly two hundred years following the 1641 destruction. The property later came into the Sparrow family and then passed by marriage into the Manchester family when Millicent Sparrow married George Montagu.
In the early nineteenth century George Montagu, who became the 6th Duke of Manchester, commissioned a rebuilt house on the old defensive site, the work completing around 1837. Ownership thereafter followed a sequence through the Dukes of Manchester, recorded as William Montagu (7th Duke) in 1855, George Montagu (8th Duke) in 1882, William Montagu (9th Duke) in 1890, and Alexander Montagu (10th Duke) in the 1940s. Alexander Montagu vacated the house in 1928 and in 1943 leased it to the United States Army; General George S. Patton is recorded as visiting the castle that year and serving as guest of honour at a dance held there. In the 1950s Alexander Montagu sold the estate to Thomas Hutchinson, a local businessman and founder of the Tayto company. The castle was restored and now contains offices for the Tayto potato crisp factory, while the surrounding demesne includes a golf course.
Condition
The site presents a nineteenth-century country house erected on the footprint of earlier defensive works. The present building dates from the reconstruction carried out around 1837, and it occupies the location of the medieval or early modern stronghold associated with the O’Hanlon clan. Archaeological evidence and documentary continuity indicate that the later house intentionally replaced the older fortified site rather than being sited at a new location.
The earlier stronghold functioned as the local defensive centre for the O’Hanlons prior to the seventeenth century and was rebuilt under English control during the Plantation period. That fortification was ruined during the fighting of 1641 and remained in a ruined state for about two centuries before nineteenth-century rebuilding. Those earlier defensive remains were subsequently superseded by the reconstructed residence and therefore survive as the historical footprint beneath and around the later house.
The reconstructed house of circa 1837 served as the Manchester family’s Irish seat and endured later military reuse, being leased to the United States Army in 1943 during the Second World War. The house was later restored for civilian use and today accommodates office space for the Tayto crisp company. The surrounding parkland, which formed part of the estate demesne, now incorporates a golf course as part of the property’s landscape.
Location
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