Ireland · Ruin
Dangan Castle
Caisleán an Daingin
Dangan Castle is a former stately home in County Meath, Ireland, long associated with the Wellesley family and the childhood home of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. The early-18th-century house and its extensive gardens were largely destroyed by fire in 1809 and subsequently fell into ruin; only fragments and outer walls remain today beside Dangan Church.
Its prime
1780
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1780
What Dangan Castle looked like in its prime.
A two-storey early-18th-century rectangular country house with a symmetrical three-bay façade, regular tall window openings and a low parapet/roofline with a single central chimney-stack; the main block stands beside the remains of an older medieval tower. The house sits within broad parkland of sweeping lawns and mature trees, fronting onto an extensive ornamental lake with small islands and a small fort or island structure visible in the water; a church stands nearby along the approach road.
Its story
The story of Dangan Castle.
The Wesleys and Richard Colley's New House
The Wesley family, whose name was later spelled and pronounced Wellesley, had held the land at Dangan in County Meath since the conquests of Henry II, and the medieval castle that was once their seat survives only as a ruined tower. It was Richard Colley who cleared it away. He had inherited the estate from the childless Gerald Wesley on condition that he change his surname, becoming the Right Honourable Richard Wesley, 1st Baron Mornington, and in the early 1700s he built Dangan House. He spent a considerable sum on the gardens, 600 Irish acres of them, with a lake of 26 acres carrying a fort, several islands and several ships; Mary Delany described them in detail.
Arthur Wellesley's Childhood and the Sale to Thomas Burrowes
Richard was succeeded by his son Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, whose own son Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, spent most of his childhood at the castle and its gardens. The estate left Wellesley hands after Arthur's elder brother Richard, 1st Marquess Wellesley, inherited it in 1781 and sold it to Thomas Burrowes of the East India Company.
Roger O'Connor and the Fire of 1809
In the early years of the 19th century the house was occupied by Roger O'Connor, who acquired it from Burrowes on a permanently renewable lease. O'Connor, a passionate Irish nationalist, asserted that he had taken it as "a suitable residence in which to entertain Napoleon" after the defeat of Britain. In 1809 a serious fire destroyed much of the building. Insurance fraud was suspected at the time; sixty years later O'Connor's son Francisco Burdett O'Connor wrote in his autobiography that he had accidentally started the fire himself, melting lead to make bullets.
The Mail Coach Trial and the Ruin of 1841
In 1817 O'Connor was accused of plotting with his estate manager and labourers to rob a mail coach, in the course of which a guard was shot and killed. He was acquitted after a sensational trial but left Dangan soon afterwards, and the already seriously damaged castle and grounds fell rapidly into irretrievable disrepair. By 1841 The Irish Penny Journal recorded that "nothing but the outer walls remain, and the interior space, once formed into ample halls and chambers, has been converted into a flower garden", adding that in the recent past the shell had been "a place of concealment for plunder and a resort of thieves".
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1780.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Dangan Castle, including 1 interior: central reception hall and principal rooms. 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 Dangan Castle.
The families that held Dangan Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Wellesley
Seat of the Wesley (Wellesley) family from the conquests of Henry II until it passed from the family after 1781; childhood home of the Duke of Wellington.
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