The crown of the county’s castles

THE first castle or fortified building to stand in Bunratty was in 1251, believed to be an early Norman motte and bailey. Since that time, a castle has remained a fixture in Bunratty.

This fascinating history of Bunratty Castle’s evolution over the years to how it stands today has been put together in a new publication by Ruan-based author, Martin Breen.

Tracing the history of the castle itself, Martin has also mapped the family lines of those who occupied the varying castles as they changed and evolved over the years from the Anglo Norman family of De Clare, believed to have arrived in Bunratty in 1276, to the last-known residents Standish Robert Gage Prendergast Vereker, 7th Viscount Lord Gort, who purchased it in 1953.

Explaining why he embarked on the project, Martin said, “I was in Bunratty one day and someone said ‘there isn’t an up-to-date history’; there was one but it is out of print now. So after Christmas about six months ago, I started work on it.”

The book gives a detailed history of the four distinct castles or fortified structures since the middle of the 13th century. It covers the sieges, conquests, executions and murders which are linked to Bunratty covering an 800-year period.

Many maps and drawings of the castle have been included in The History of Bunratty Castle and Martin has also taken a number of photographs, including new photographs of portrait paintings of the Earl of Thomand and the long line of earls who lived in the castle.

“I photographed all the portraits, some of them are 400-years-old, to show the line of the earls from the fourth to the eighth who owned Bunratty. The fourth to the sixth earls actually lived there. The fourth earl did renovations on the castle in the 1600s but it was in ruins from the late 1600s until the 1950s when Lord Gort and Shannon Development came together to renovate it and said it would be a good venture,” Martin said.

Martin has always had an interest in history and has a number of books under his belt. His fascination with the castles of Clare has led him and a friend on a 20-year quest across the county cataloguing the history and locations of all the county’s castles. His next publication, which he aims to release in two years’ time, will be the result of these efforts.

“We have over 220 castles in Clare and we have visited most of them and written up a history about them. There are so many of them in the county and I was just inquisitive about them and thought we should publish something about who lived in them and their history,” Martin concluded.