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I discovered Glin Castle in Winter 2018 issue of ‘Town&Country’ magazine. I was captivated by its beauty reflected in the photos in the magazine. The place seems extremely romantic and cosy within the breathtaking beauty of the nature surrounding it. The story of the Castle also drew my interest.

The Glin Castle is a country house and a hotel located along the River Shannon in Limerick, Ireland. The Castle belongs to Fitzgerald family for 800 years and was home to the Black Knights or the Knights of Glin – an ancient Irish title.

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The current owner / chatelaine of Glin Castle is Catherine Fitzgerald who is the daughter of the final Knight of Glin. Catherine Fitzgerald is married to the actor Dominic West, with whom she has four children. The couple run the castle together as a hotel. It is told in the article in the magazine that the couple first met when they were undergraduates at Trinity College Dublin and that Dominic West had first visited Glin for Catherine’s 21st birthday party. Afterwards, he had had a daughter from a different relationship while Catherine had wed the Earl of Durham. Their paths had crossed again after many years and they were married at Glin in 2010.

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The FitzGerald family first settled here in the 1200’s following the Norman invasion of Ireland. In the early 14th century the Earl of Desmond, head of the Geraldines (FitzGeralds), made hereditary Knights – the White Knight, the Green Knight of Kerry and the Black Knight of Glin- who defended their lands against the troops of Elizabeth I for seven hundred years. The FitzGerald family survived several rebellions and wars, famine and bankruptcy. By the late 17th century, the old castle had been abandoned and the FitzGeralds moved into a longhouse overlooking the Shannon River. The FitzGeralds threw magnificent dances both at the house and on their yacht on the Shannon at the end of the eighteenth century.
The present castle was planned and built by John Bateman Fitzgerald, the 23rd Knight of Glin, and his wife Margaretta Maria Fraunceis Gwyn. Lady Rachel Wyndham Quin, the wife of the 27th knight, did much to develop the garden planting new species from South America.
Desmond John Villiers FitzGerald, the 29th and final Knight of Glin, who was also a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London as an expert in decorative arts, and his wife Olda moved back to Glin from London in 1975. Under Olda and Desmond, the castle was host to rock stars, poets, writers, artists and Anglo-Irish aristocracy.
In 1993, the family decided to turn the house into a hotel. For several years, Olda and Desmond ran Glin Castle first as a B&B and then as a small hotel. But due to the financial crisis across Ireland, they closed the business in 2008. Desmond Fitzgerald-The 29th Black Knight- died in 2011. (wikipedia.org / houseandgarden.co.uk / glin-castle.com)

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Following the death of the last knight, the family decided to sell the house and Glin Castle was put on the market. However, the house didn’t sell due to the state of the economy in Ireland at the time so the current owners -Catherine Fitzgerald and Dominic West- decided to keep the castle in the family and offer it for luxury rentals and weddings.

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Catherine Fitzgerald is a professional landscape designer who is said to work in projects like the restoration of Hillsborough Castle – the Queen’s residence in Northern Ireland. She is said to create a magic in Glin’s gardens with different arrangements adding many trees and plants. The gardens are shown in detail in the video of the castle’s web site. (glin-caste.com). It is stated that the fuchsia flowers seen in the above picture were originally grown in Chile but they can be seen in all over western Ireland today. Catherine and Dominic are said to work in the grounds whenever they’re in residence.

Dominic West is an English actor and director best known for playing in ‘The Affair‘ series (2014-2019) which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series-Drama at the in 2015. He is also said to co-star with Keira Knightley in the film ‘Colette‘. I watched the film ‘Colette’ and I liked it but I knew then neither about Dominic West nor that one day I would tell his story or the story of his house.

The romantic atmosphere in Glin Castle is very well described in the article in Town&Country magazine as:

”A huge log fire burns in the entrance hall. … .Vases brim with berries and foliage from the estate, their leaves still damp from the rain, and the smell of woodsmoke mingles with that of furniture polish … a Jack Russell terrier curled up in an armchair by the hearth.”

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Glin Castle has delicate ceilings, Corinthian columns, and a flying staircase lit by a Venetian window. Family portraits and Irish pictures line the walls, and the library bookcase has a secret door leading to the hall and the flying staircase. Pictures and blue and white porcelain adorn the walls of its bedrooms. The bedrooms at the back of the castle overlook the garden, while those at the front have a view of the river. There are two kitchens at the castle -a commercial kitchen which can cater for up to eighty people and a family kitchen with Irish country furniture. The castle has extensive marvelous gardens including a kitchen garden.

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Glin Castle is said to be available to hire exclusively for private rental accommodation, events, weddings, golf tours, group tours of castle and gardens with lunch and film location. Things to do at the Castle are listed in their web site. It has activities like archery, falconry, yoga classes, Irish cooking demonstration, gaelic football, scavenger hunt. There is traditional Irish music, Irish dancing, Jazz band, Knights of Glin talk by local historian, whiskey tasting as pre-dinner entertainment. There is roulette and blackjack or film night as after dinner entertainment. (glin-castle.com).

They also arrange different events or hold workshops from time to time which you can follow from their web-site. For instance, there is an upcoming ‘Floral Workshop Weekend‘ hosted by Dominic West and Catherine FitzGerald where floral designers Emily Thompson and Shane Connolly will give masterclass sessions on modern floral installations and design using flowers and foliage from the enchanting gardens of Glin Castle. As a landscape gardener herself, Catherine FitzGerald is a host at this special event. (glin-castle.com).

It is told in the article in the Town&Country magazine that although the family had sold their London home and moved to Bath for a quieter life, they travel a lot especially to LA due to the job of Dominic West. However, referring to Glin Castle, Catherine states in the writing: ‘We always come back, … It’s the place that feels like home.‘ I also hope that they always come back and continue to run this marvelous Castle which I hope to visit one day.

Notes: If you are interested in castles, there are plenty of them in Ireland- also known for its castles. I discovered two nice books about Irish castles in Amazon which you can check here and here.

If you like detective and mystery books, I liked the book “Murder in an Irish Bookshop” which you can check here. The topic and subject of the book drew my interest. It is also stated that there are delightful descriptions of Irish villages and Irish live in the book. Carlene O’Connor has series of Irish mystery books like “Murder in an Irish Pub” or “Murder at Irish Christmas“. She lives in USA and her great-grandmother had emigrated from Ireland in 1897. It is stated that of all the places she’s wandered, she fell most in love with a walled town in County Limerick. (kensingtonbooks.com). Let me remind you and note here again that Glin Castle is also in Limerick.