Ireland · Restored
Barberstown Castle
Barberstown Castle is a medieval stone castle in Straffan, County Kildare, Ireland, originally built around 1288 and later extended in the 19th century. It has been used as a hotel since 1971 and stands within about 20 acres of gardens. A subterranean tunnel linking the castle toward the nearby parish church was revealed during 20th-century renovations.
Its prime
1835
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1835
What Barberstown Castle looked like in its prime.
A compact grey-stone castle dominated by a tall, square keep and a slightly lower square tower, both finished with crenellated parapets; walls show coursed rubble and small narrow slit windows. The roofline is flat behind the battlements and lower 19th-century masonry wings extend from the medieval towers. The building sits low within mature gardens and lawns with scattered trees; overall condition at its prime is complete and occupied with intact battlements and continuous stone walls.
Its story
The story of Barberstown Castle.
From Nicholas Barby to William Sutton, 1288-1630
Nicholas Barby built the castle at Straffan in County Kildare around 1288, some 25 kilometres west of Dublin, on land that had originally belonged to the Fitzgerald family. In 1630 the property was in the hands of William Sutton, of one of the foremost families in the district.
Tyrconnell's Confiscation and the Vanhomrigh Purchase, 1689-1830s
In 1689, following the accession of James II, the Earl of Tyrconnell confiscated Barberstown from Lord Kingston. It became the property of the Commissioners of the Revenue, who leased it to Roger Kelly in the closing years of the seventeenth century, and at the end of that century it passed through a number of hands. One of them was Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1697 and father of the Vanessa who was Dean Swift's lover; he bought the castle in 1703 for £1,033, together with 335 acres of land.
Vanhomrigh sold it on to the Henrys, and the Henrys, under financial pressure, sold it to Hugh Barton of the wine family behind Barton and Guestier. Barton put up the last wing of the house in the 1830s, and built Straffan House nearby, now the K Club.
Norah Devlin's Hotel and the Tunnel Found in 1996
The Huddlestons sold the castle in the twentieth century to Mrs Norah Devlin, who converted it into a hotel in 1971; it stands in twenty acres of gardens. Eric Clapton bought the property in 1979 and sold it in 1987 to Ken Healy, its owner since, who lives in it; Healy took the house from a ten-bedroom guesthouse with three bathrooms to a fifty-nine-bedroom four-star hotel. Renovation work in 1996 uncovered a tunnel nobody had recorded before, running from the castle to the church in Straffan and thought to have been used under the Penal Laws.
Step inside
4 places to explore in 1835.
The record describes 4 distinct spots at Barberstown Castle, including 1 interior: stone tunnel entrance toward the church. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Barberstown Castle.
The families that held Barberstown Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Owned in 1630 by William Sutton, of one of the foremost families in the area.
Barton
Sold by the Henrys to Hugh Barton of the Barton and Guestier wine family.
Nearby
