Markree Castle

Until the 1660s Markree was a fortified outpost of the Irish McDonagh clan, guarding the ford across the River Unshin, which still partly moats the site. In 1663 Cornet Edward Cooper, who had served under Cromwell when his army defeated the O'Brien clan, was allotted the original fourteenth-century castle and the lands around it. Conor O'Brien had died in that fighting, and Cooper married his widow, Marie Rua — Red Mary. With her two sons the couple went to live at Dromoland Castle; Donough was left Dromoland and his brother inherited Markree, and Charles Cooper, the last of the family to own Markree, is a direct descendant of that second son.

Times remained turbulent. During King James's attempt to regain the throne the Catholic army occupied Markree and the Coopers had to flee; after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 they returned, and the family held Markree for generations more. In the 1920s, during the Civil War, it was occupied once more — this time by the Irish Free State army.

In 1830 Col. Edward Joshua Cooper MP (1798–1863), eldest son of Edward Synge Cooper MP and of Ann, daughter of Henry Vansittart, Governor of Bengal, set up Markree Observatory in the castle grounds. For a number of years his refracting telescope was the largest in the world. The Royal Astronomical Society in 1851 called it "undoubtedly the most richly furnished private observatory known", worked with great activity by Cooper himself and by his very able assistant, Mr Andrew Graham. In the 1840s the observatory's staff found the object now known as the asteroid 9 Metis, and the observatory remained active until the death of Edward Henry Cooper MP in 1902.

The grounds hold a second scientific record. Ireland's lowest officially recognised air temperature, −19.1 °C, was measured at Markree Castle on 16 January 1881.

The castle as it now stands dates from 1802, with exterior changes by the architect Francis Johnston and further work, mainly to the interior, in 1896. On the staircase landing a large stained-glass window traces the Cooper family tree from Victorian times back to the reign of King John. Cecil Frances Alexander is said by some accounts to have written her hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful" while a guest at Markree in 1848.

The soldier and politician Bryan Cooper inherited the castle when his father died in 1902 and lived there with his family from 1903 until his own death in 1930, apart from the First World War and spells away on political duties. After the Second World War a later Bryan Cooper lived there with Elizabeth Cooper until his own death in 1981; their son Edward took on the estate that year, but converted the stable yard into a more manageable home and turned to farming. The castle stood empty from 1982 to 1992, but for the filming of the television miniseries Troubles in 1988.

Charles Cooper, the younger son, opened Markree as a hotel in 1992, and in recent times it was run by Charles and Mary Cooper, the tenth generation of the family to live there. In 2015, after four centuries, it changed hands at last, sold to the Corscadden family, who also hold Cabra Castle in County Cavan, Ballyseede Castle in County Kerry and Bellingham Castle in County Louth. Their extensive renovation was the subject of a television documentary. Markree remains a hotel, its 300-acre estate home to red squirrels, otters and kingfishers.