Ireland · Still standing
Huntington Castle
Huntington Castle (also called Clonegal Castle) is a privately owned country house and castle in Clonegal, County Carlow, Ireland, with a 15th-century tower house core and major extensions from the 17th and 19th centuries. It sits within formal gardens, woodland walks and a small ornamental lake and has been used continuously as a residence and for public tours.
Its prime
1880
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1880
What Huntington Castle looked like in its prime.
A cylindrical, crenellated round tower of rough grey stone rises above a lower seven-bay, two-storey stone wing with large vertically proportioned windows and a raised stone terrace accessed by an external flight of steps. Ivy climbs parts of the tower and walls. The house faces formal parterre lawns and an avenue of limes, with wooded ‘wilderness’ planting, fish ponds and a small ornamental lake set below the slope; overall the building appears complete and lived-in.
Its story
The story of Huntington Castle.
The Caviness Tower House and the Castle of 1625
The original tower house at Clonegal was built in the fifteenth century as a stronghold for the Caviness family, an old Irish clan. During the plantation of that area in the early seventeenth century it was put to use as a plantation castle, and the castle standing at Clonegal today was built in 1625.
Cromwell's Garrison on the Dublin-Wexford Road, 1650
The village of Clonegal carried strategic importance during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland because it sat on the road between Dublin and Wexford. The castle was captured and used as a garrison by Oliver Cromwell as he marched on Kilkenny in 1650.
The Esmonde Gardens and Huntington's Own Electricity
The Esmonde family laid out most of the gardens in the seventeenth century: the French limes on the Avenue, the parterre or lawns to the side of the house, the fish ponds on either side of the centre walk through the wilderness, and the majority of the yews that make up the Yew Walk. Larger plantings have given Huntington a number of great Irish trees, among them varieties of hickory, a cut-leaved oak, Siberian crab and buckeye chestnut.
The house itself was extended circa 1880 with a seven-bay, two-storey wing. The River Derry, which forms the boundary between Counties Wexford and Carlow, flows along the bottom of the wilderness, where an ornamental lake was made; beside it stands one of the earliest water turbine houses in Ireland, which was supplying Huntington with its own electricity as early as 1888.
IRA Headquarters and the Durdin Robertson Remodelling, c.1916-1933
Huntington Castle was seized by the Irish Republican Army for use as their headquarters around 1916. In 1933 Manning Durdin Robertson redecorated the house and grounds in a modern style, which included a new boat house, the removal of the battlements and the reconstruction of the gateway.
Barry Lyndon and the Fellowship of Isis
The castle was the setting for Stanley Kubrick's film Barry Lyndon. Its basement has been the base of a religion, the Fellowship of Isis, since 1976, and in August 2008 it hosted the Solas Festival, co-founded by Olivia Robertson, her brother Lawrence Durdin-Robertson and his wife Pamela. Huntington is now owned by Alexander and Claire Durdin Robertson and remains a private house, open to the public for guided tours through June, July, August and September.
Step inside
10 places to explore in 1880.
The record describes 10 distinct spots at Huntington Castle, including 1 interior: castle basement and service areas. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Huntington Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1880, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Huntington Castle.
The families that held Huntington Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Esmonde
The Esmonde family laid out most of the gardens in the 17th century.
Durdin-Robertson
Home of the Durdin-Robertson family, the castle's current owners.
