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00:00Castles are our most dramatic landmarks from the Middle Ages, built as monuments to domination and power.
00:11Scattered all over the Irish landscape, these ancient buildings with their soaring walls and great towers leave you with no doubt about their military and defensive purpose.
00:21I just hope we brought a ladder.
00:24The Anglo-Norman aristocrats who invaded Ireland in the 12th century built their castles to control and intimidate the unruly Irish.
00:34As English rule was consolidated, the castles served as administrative centres, garrisons and jails, as well as lavish homes for the English lords.
00:48In this series, I'll be telling you stories about dramatic sieges, bloody battles, lavish lifestyles, ghostly presences, warring families and feudal lords.
01:00After all, the history of Irish castles is the history of Ireland itself.
01:05The 17th century had been one of the darkest times in Irish history.
01:18The Irish uprising, Cromwell's brutal campaign and then the war between King William and King James 40 years later,
01:24had seen Irish castles centre stage as English and European history was played out across the land.
01:30That bloody century saw the death of about a third of the population through war, starvation and plague.
01:38And in the dying years, many of the lordly classes and leaders had left with the flight of the wild geese.
01:45The 18th century would be in contrast a period of relative peace, allowing the landed gentry update their medieval castles.
01:53The 17th century was a time when you locked up, you kept the murder hold, you kept the musket loops in the doorway and so on.
02:03It wasn't until really the end of the 17th century that houses, what we would call fortified houses, you know, came in.
02:10And then, at the beginning, in the 1700s, all of these landlords, plenty of money, newfangled ideas, you could do away with all the buttresses and the matriculations and all of that, started to build houses.
02:25The wealthy Anglo-Irish families still needed fancy buildings from which to administer their vast estates.
02:32But the emphasis moved from battlements and defensive keeps to homes in a more elegant scale.
02:39The families who are settling here in the 17th century, right, are rising from army officers to very wealthy landlords.
02:47And the further they rise, they want to reveal their newfound status to their peers and friends and so on.
02:55In some cases, they build grand houses. Those grand houses get grander and grander over successive generations,
03:04probably to reflect the fact that they are getting wealthier and wealthier.
03:08It was during this period that Dublin Castle was transformed into what we see today.
03:15Although you can still see the marks on the walls of the gatehouse, where the sentries used to sharpen their swords back in more tumultuous times.
03:31There's nothing much left here that gives you a flavour of the castle that King John built just 30 years after the invasion.
03:37That medieval fortress from which the British ruled their ungrateful colony, it's all but gone.
03:44It was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1684 and it was replaced by this 18th century palace complete with its state apartments.
03:53No longer primarily a garrison, Dublin Castle now needed to be a comfortable home for the Lord Lieutenants.
03:59The epicentre of the social life for the landed gentry, it was the scene of great soirees and ceremonial get-togethers.
04:06And the event of the year was the Grand Ball, held every year on St. Patrick's Night.
04:13So the flags that are here in this room, they belong to a very important order called the Order of St. Patrick.
04:18Which I never knew existed, the Order of St. Patrick, right.
04:20I know a lot of people don't.
04:21So each knight had a flag which displayed its family crest and those flags were hung in St. Patrick's Hall.
04:26And the other flags for the other generations of that knighthood going back hundreds of years, they fly in St. Patrick's Cathedral just around the corner.
04:32Gotcha, very knowledgeable, Melanie.
04:35I know, yeah.
04:36Yeah.
04:37Whose family crest would have three cows heads in it?
04:41That I have no idea but this one over here with the shells in it, that's the Spencer family from Althorp in England.
04:46Lady Diana Spencer, yeah.
04:48Ah, right, right.
04:49Another subtle room.
04:52A very subtle room.
04:53I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess if this is the throne room.
04:56Well actually, to give it its correct title, it's the Presence Chamber because you would have been in the presence of...
05:01Greatness.
05:02Very good.
05:03That's a big throne.
05:04Who was that made for?
05:05Well the throne was designed for King George IV of England and he was a very big guy, weighing in at over 28 stone on his deathbed.
05:14They had to bury him in a square shaped coffin.
05:17They had to bury him in a square shaped coffin?
05:19That's true, yeah.
05:20Yeah.
05:21Oh yeah, look at them.
05:24I know, they're fabulous looking.
05:26Aren't they fabulous?
05:27Absolutely beautiful.
05:28So this is a gallery of those men who were sent over here to rule the roost.
05:32Yes.
05:33Who are some of the gents that we're looking at here?
05:35Well the first one that we're going to take a look at is the Marquis Cornwallis.
05:38Now Cornwallis wasn't a very popular man, mainly because as a way of interrogating people, he was pro-torture.
05:45Right.
05:46So and his particular form of torture that he practiced was something known as pitch capping.
05:50Now I hope you haven't just eaten because this is quite a gory story.
05:53Okay, it's not going to be good.
05:54Yeah, go on.
05:55So pitch capping, you take the poor condemned prisoner, you take a large cap and you fill it with pitch or tar.
06:01You put it down onto their head and that's going to burn and it's probably going to kill you.
06:06Now for, just to make sure, you then rip the pitch cap off your head.
06:11Take the scalp off.
06:12Take half your head off.
06:13Yeah.
06:14Exposing your brains to the elements and killing you instantly.
06:17In 1907, there was a very curious happening in the castle.
06:23Someone stole the Irish crown jewels.
06:26The investigation uncovered stories of gay employees and drunken parties which included shock horror,
06:32a leading member of the royal family.
06:41The Irish crown jewels consisted of ceremonial gold collars and maces,
06:46but the centerpiece was known as the Star of St. Patrick.
06:49Bejeweled with 150 Brazilian diamonds, a shamrock of emeralds and a ruby cross.
06:54The jewels had great symbolic value, as well as being worth millions at today's prices.
06:59So the cleaner arrives for work in the morning.
07:03She goes into the library and she discovers the safe is unlocked.
07:07So she goes and she gets her boss, she says the safe is unlocked.
07:10He comes down, has a look and sure enough the jewels are gone.
07:13And there were only two keys to that safe.
07:15One was on his person, this guy Arthur Vickers,
07:18and the other he kept in his house in Klonsky Road.
07:20So what happened then, you know, when the crime was reported?
07:24Now they didn't, the police didn't have to come far,
07:27because the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Dublin Detective Squad
07:32were both housed right here in the castle.
07:35That's handy isn't it?
07:36Oh yeah, very handy.
07:38So there must have been all sorts of theories at that time as to who took them, where they went.
07:44So the finger must have been pointed somewhere.
07:47There were certain kind of activities, late night activities taking place in the tower.
07:52And when you say certain activities, what was going on over there?
07:55Well, there were parties taking place, late night parties.
07:59And there was a certain group of men that were employed over there of dubious character,
08:04or questionable character, as they would have called them back then.
08:08Right.
08:09In particular, one Francis Shackleton.
08:12Now he would have been a brother of the Arctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton,
08:15who of course was a bit of a celebrity at the time and very close to Edward VII.
08:19But they discovered that he was, it's anecdotal evidence now obviously,
08:24but there was reason to believe he may have been having an affair with the King of England's brother-in-law,
08:29the Duke of Argyle.
08:33What would Shackleton's motive have been?
08:35He was in financial difficulties at the time.
08:38Right.
08:39He also had the means to do it because he shared a house with Vickers here in Dublin,
08:43when he was in Ireland, on Clonsky Road.
08:45So he could have gotten access to this second key.
08:48And made a copy of it.
08:49And made a copy.
08:50So...
08:51Yeah, you don't need to be the world's greatest detective to put that evidence of Frontier
08:54and go, there's your man, my lord.
08:56No.
08:59To prevent a scandal, the blame was placed on Sir Arthur Vickers.
09:02He was dismissed, only to be taken out and shot years later by the IRA at his home in County Kerry.
09:07In his will, he was still protesting his innocence, pointing the finger at the disreputable Shackleton.
09:13The theft of the Irish crown jewels was a huge scandal.
09:17Remember, this was around the same time that Oscar Wilde was jailed for his homosexuality.
09:22And some of the parties that went on in here involved the king's brother-in-law.
09:26So, of course, the king ordered the suppression of the most shocking, lurid and sensational scandal of the day.
09:33The career of an innocent man was ruined, and all the files and documentary evidence were destroyed.
09:38And as for the Irish crown jewels themselves, well, they were never seen again.
09:45As life in Ireland settled into a period of relative peace for most of the 18th century,
09:55castles and country house building flourished around the countryside.
09:58These new buildings brought a mystery and drama to the Irish castle.
10:03The castle's style suited the landscape, as well as the military background of many of these Anglo-Irish families.
10:09And with the new fashion for romantic gardens, these fairytale estates would allow the Irish imagination and inventiveness run riot.
10:19All around the country, the castles of the lordly classes were being turned into lavish homes.
10:25You see, there was no longer any need for these big, impenetrable stone keeps with curtain walls and baileys
10:32to protect the Anglo-Irish from the warring natives.
10:34No, no, no. It was time to modernise.
10:37Time for comfortable houses in all the latest styles with all the mod cons.
10:42However, for the wealthy classes, a castle was still a status symbol.
10:47So the bigger and more lavish, the better.
10:52Kilkenny Castle was remodelled in an Italian style.
10:55Ashford Castle done up as a French chateau, but neither were quite as dramatic as the Neo-Gothic.
11:01An architectural movement that saw restrained 18th century houses transformed into fabulous confections
11:08that wouldn't be out of place in a Disney movie.
11:10You know, some begin to actually build castles from scratch, others modify their houses
11:16and they remodel them and castellate them.
11:20So they create Neo-Gothic castles from original classical structures.
11:26In the 18th century, it was all about rationalism and everybody wanted to be Italian.
11:30You know, so it was like, it was the aristocratic version of the Hacienda bungalow.
11:35You were showing off that you were a cultured person, you'd done the grand tour to Italy.
11:39Anglo-Irish gentlemen, when they crossed the Alps, drew the carriage blinds down so they wouldn't have to look at horrible, rude scenery.
11:46And then when they got onto the cultivated plains of the Veneto, did the carriage blinds go up again.
11:50But then suddenly we had Lord Byron and in Ireland we had the first Celtic rock.
11:56Before Riverdance was Tom Moore, the first Celtic pop sensation.
12:01So suddenly it was hip and cool to have a wild castle and have an antecedent.
12:06And everybody wanted to go back to their medieval roots.
12:09Everybody wanted the Gothic castle.
12:12So even the Lesleys pulled their real old house, that actually ironically had a real castle then,
12:17to build a fake Scotch peronial castle.
12:24The Pakenhams had Pakenham Hall, perfectly nice Italian at the house.
12:28No, no, we wanted Pakenham Hall to be Tully Nally Castle.
12:31And, you know, to show that we have aristocratic roots.
12:35Originally built as a fortified house in the 17th century,
12:45Tully Nally has been remodelled and extended over the years.
12:48Tully Nally is extraordinary really.
12:52It's not so much a house as a village really.
12:55It just keeps going on and on and on.
12:57And it is wonderful as you approach it to see that roof line
13:01with all of those turrets and chimneys and so forth.
13:04I know it's a nightmare for the poor Pakenhams,
13:08because there's always some problem with the roof or a drain or whatever,
13:12because there are so many of them.
13:14But it creates the most extraordinary spectacle on the horizon.
13:18And it must be one of the biggest houses in Ireland.
13:23The porch was put on in about between 1803 and 1806
13:28by Francis Johnston, the Irish architect,
13:31as part of the gothicisation of what was an ordinary Georgian house.
13:36And the first thing he did was the porch and these battlements.
13:41If it was a more sensible, nice, square Georgian house,
13:45we wouldn't all be constantly worrying how we're going to pay the bills.
13:48So it's good and bad.
13:54In 1961, when I inherited, there was 63% debt duties, including succession duties.
14:03And most estates crumbled and vanished under that.
14:06All the farm had to be run from bank loans.
14:10We owed the bank a great deal of money.
14:12So I never felt I was rich or never felt I was particularly well-oiled.
14:17But I was always in love with the house.
14:19If you inherit a large house, everything you do, everything you think about,
14:25everything you struggle to achieve is based around making enough money
14:30to keep the roof on, to keep the drains clear, to keep the furniture in decent nick,
14:36to keep the pictures on the wall, keep the floors polished and so on and so forth,
14:40to try and get more people to come in through the door in order to make money.
14:44And it's a lifetime's task. The rewards are minimal.
14:51Personal satisfaction has to be your only reward, because there is no other.
14:57Thomas Pakenham didn't expect to inherit the estate,
15:00but his uncle, the 6th Earl, died childless.
15:04I was very small. I was 11, but a very small 11.
15:08My sister, 12, was very tall.
15:10And we were brought to the local pub, which is still there,
15:13and the butler took us down and then said to the rather amazed people drinking their pints,
15:18he said,
15:19gentlemen, let me introduce the next Earl of Longford.
15:23And my sister, Antonio, stepped forward.
15:26She thought she was going to be.
15:28So here's Edna O'Brien, with her two sons.
15:31I didn't think Pakenham Hall was really a good name for house.
15:34I mean, not in Ireland, and it was only called that,
15:37because they'd come from carpetbaggers, they'd come from East Anglia.
15:40But the original name of the house was Tallinnalli.
15:43So I thought I'd restore it, and I did it as soon as I came.
15:47It's amazing, this flamboyant man should have had such a tiny little signature.
15:51Anyway, there he is, July the 22nd, 1930.
15:58Renowned worldwide for his passion for trees,
16:01Thomas Pakenham has planted over 90,000 on the estate.
16:07I think everybody loves trees, don't they?
16:09I'm the caretaker, aren't I?
16:11I'm the steward, and I'm responsible for these trees,
16:14so I have to love them for their mind, my family, if you like.
16:18In 1993, there was a big storm forecast.
16:23Every day I watched it on television coming close to this great black spider
16:27on the television set, and it was going to hit us one night.
16:32And I wasn't normally a kind of tree-hugging person,
16:35but that night I felt they deserved a hug,
16:38and I said, good luck tonight.
16:40The storm was coming, and in the morning form...
16:43I mean, there was a certain amount of crashing and banging in the night,
16:47but in the morning there were, not all of them,
16:50but a lot of them in different parts of the estate were lying flat.
16:54And though that was an emotional business,
16:57I think people do feel a sort of bereavement
16:59when their trees are blown down,
17:01if they've been responsible for them
17:04and looked after them and watched them grow.
17:07They're not static objects, they're living objects.
17:10But buildings are different, aren't they?
17:13Irish castles are rich in history,
17:16and they don't come much richer than the Pakenham family.
17:19Now, even though the castle itself didn't see any military action,
17:22the family, including one Duke of Wellington,
17:25who married Kitty Pakenham,
17:26well, they all saw battles across North America,
17:29the Mediterranean and India.
17:31Remember the Duke of Wellington?
17:33Yeah, exactly.
17:34He was the guy who beat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
17:37Money problems meant that marriage was always a business in the 18th century.
17:46A gentleman's daughter would be presented at the age of 16
17:49to the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle,
17:51and then chaperoned to a series of balls looking for a wealthy catch.
17:56The Pakenham's Dublin house was on Cavendish Row,
17:59just across the road from the Rotunda ballroom,
18:02where Kitty Pakenham was introduced to the dashing Captain Arthur Wellesley.
18:06Soon the pair were openly courting.
18:09The Wellesley family were a classic Anglo-Irish family,
18:15well got with good lands and killed air,
18:17but they had an arty and spendthrift head of the family, Lord Mornington,
18:21who was a professor of music at Trinity College.
18:24Had a whole lot of very talented sons.
18:26The eldest son had a distinguished political and military career,
18:29but I think the second or the third son, Arthur,
18:32he said, you don't go into politics because I went to the family,
18:36you're a good violinist.
18:39And poor old Arthur practised and practised the violin,
18:42but never quite made the grade.
18:44So the rich uncle by marriage said,
18:46put him in the British army, you'll never be heard of again,
18:49I can get him a commission in a good regiment.
18:52The Wellesley family were up to their neck in debt at the time,
18:56and so the young captain's proposal was rejected by the sniffy Pakenhams.
19:01There was more to the violin playing Arthur Wellesley than met the eye.
19:05While Kitty stayed at home and pined for her lost love,
19:09he went off and joined the army.
19:11And after major successes in India,
19:13Captain Arthur became the Duke of Wellington,
19:15going on to defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo
19:18and twice becoming Prime Minister of Britain and Ireland.
19:24So when they met again 18 years later,
19:26they were both very different people.
19:28She was a shy, artistic woman in her thirties.
19:31And he, well, he was now a powerful and arrogant war hero.
19:38When the Duke of Wellington,
19:39having not been good enough for the Pakenhams when he first proposed to Kitty,
19:43made off and became fame and fortune,
19:46and become the second most famous person in Europe, you know, after Bonaparte,
19:49having agreed against it, felt he had to do the honourable thing.
19:54And he married her.
19:55His opening words when they were being married in Longford House
19:58in Rutland, in Cavendish Row, was,
20:01by God, she's grown ugly.
20:04And that wasn't, that was to his brother.
20:06And that wasn't a good omen for the marriage.
20:09Letters in the archive in Tullian Alley Castle recount the gossip of the time
20:14about the unfortunate Kitty and the infamous marriage.
20:17Lady Exeter insisted that the Duke had never been told
20:21of the alteration in her appearance and was held to his bargain.
20:26The Countess, that's this lady's mother, exclaimed,
20:30she was as fair as you are and you are very like her.
20:34As you can imagine, there were a lot of jealous women
20:36who couldn't understand why he decided to marry her, you know.
20:40And so they would propagate this story that she was, you know,
20:45mad, ugly, you know, sort of stupid.
20:51All those things would be courage.
20:56The late 18th century saw tectonic shifts in the politics
20:59of the Western world.
21:01New ideas were in the air and the old order was under threat.
21:04When a new movement for freedom blossomed across the country,
21:07the challenge to the crown was led, once again,
21:10from one of the oldest and most powerful families in the land.
21:13The Fitzgerald family of Maynooth Castle,
21:17who had ruled Kildare since the 12th century,
21:19were one of the most powerful feudal lords.
21:22In the turbulent 17th century, the Fitzgeralds had maintained their estates
21:29by becoming Protestant.
21:30And by the 18th century, Carton House and its 1,000 acres
21:34was their main estate.
21:36And Leinster House, the present-day Irish government building,
21:39was where they stayed when in town.
21:41But the old trait for rebellion was about to re-emerge in the son of the first Duke,
21:49their most famous and dashing hero yet.
21:52Lord Edward Fitzgerald is one of the most romantic figures in Irish history.
22:01His remains are buried in the crypts of Werbrook Street Church,
22:04which is just over the wall from Dublin Castle,
22:06which of course is the institution that he tried to overthrow by force.
22:10You see, dangerous ideas about liberty and fraternity were starting to circulate.
22:14In America, there was a revolution against the British.
22:17In France, there was a revolution against the monarchy.
22:19So our young aristocrat joined up with the United Irishmen,
22:22headed up by Wolftown.
22:27The whole ascendancy in Ireland towards the end of the 18th century
22:30was beginning to feel there weren't civil rights for the population of Ireland.
22:33Including the Protestants.
22:35Including the Protestants.
22:36It was really Protestants who founded the United Irishmen.
22:39And Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the fifth son of the man who founded Leinster House,
22:44who built Leinster House,
22:46he was the most unlikely rebel to join the United Irishmen.
22:51But he had actually served with the British Army
22:53and distinguished himself fighting the Americans during their revolution.
22:57In France, he was swung over to the ideas and the ideals of the French Revolution.
23:02And that became quite public.
23:03He was cashiered out of the British Army
23:05and he found his way back to Ireland,
23:07brimful of all these ideas that Ireland should have its own freedom from England.
23:12And this was shared by a lot of the Protestant ascendancy here.
23:16He wasn't on his own.
23:17In fact, the United Irishmen, which were founded in 1791,
23:20were basically founded by the Protestant elite in Ireland.
23:24And in 1796, because of his military experience,
23:29he was made Commander-in-Chief of the United Irishmen.
23:34Werberg Street was where the Lord Lieutenants of the castle attended church on Sundays,
23:38as did the Fitzgerald family, when they were up in town.
23:41The first Duke of Leinster is the premier peer in Ireland at that particular time.
23:47So the son is essentially going in a very different direction
23:50to what the family would have expected him to do.
23:53He would have become a source of embarrassment to his brother,
23:58who was then the second Duke of Leinster.
24:00Now, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, when he was planning along with his colleagues the revolution,
24:07they hadn't reckoned on the very professional network of spies and traitors and informers
24:14that had infiltrated through their ranks.
24:17And all their secrets were known to Dublin Castle.
24:20Those inside the castle knew that Lord Edward's capture would create huge problems.
24:26I mean, he was a Duke's brother.
24:28He had powerful allies.
24:30And many of them inside the castle were conflicted in their allegiances.
24:33In fact, the Chancellor is said to have whispered into the right ears,
24:37For God's sake, will somebody please get Lord Edward out of the country?
24:41I pledge myself that I shall leave every port in the country open to him.
24:45But of course, our Edward was going nowhere.
24:50And before the Dublin Committee, as they were called,
24:52could put their plans into action in 1798,
24:55they were literally all arrested.
24:57Lord Edward Fitzgerald managed to escape capture for about two months,
25:01living in safe houses.
25:02And in one of those houses, he was finally rumbled,
25:06and the party arrived to arrest him.
25:09There was a skirmish.
25:10He was badly injured.
25:11He hurt a few people himself.
25:13And he was taken by Sedan Chair to Dublin Castle for some interrogation
25:19and then incarcerated in prison.
25:26Edward Fitzgerald died in prison,
25:28his body handed over to his mother,
25:30on the understanding that he would be buried,
25:32without ceremony, at night.
25:34An unmarked coffin was to be slipped into the crypt.
25:37However, a Republican-minded bystander scratched EF on the side,
25:41when the authorities' backs were turned.
25:43It's still there beneath the altar.
25:461798 turned into the biggest show defiance against the British to date.
25:56There were uprisings all around the country,
26:02with rebels pitted against supporters of the Crown
26:05and the soldiers from the garrison towns.
26:11Over 30,000 people were killed over a three-month period.
26:14The leaders were all executed and the country traumatised.
26:18In Tullamore, the Biori family took the side of the Crown in the rebellion.
26:37Relationships were very strained between the ruling class and their tenants.
26:41And so the first Earl of Chernobyl decided to make a gesture to his impoverished tenants.
26:46His castle, given to the family by Elizabeth I at the time of the plantations,
26:51needed updating.
26:52Refashioning his castle was like a massive community employment project
26:56for the disgruntled locals.
26:58And the results were astounding.
27:03The castle is now managed by Bridget Vance and Dudley Stewart
27:06on behalf of the Chernobyl Castle Heritage Trust.
27:11So, Bonnie, how did a girl from New York end up in Charlotte Castle?
27:16Well, Sleeping Beauty's castle is the only way I can describe it.
27:21You fell in love with it, isn't it?
27:23Yeah. As we approached it, it was covered.
27:25The forest was coming in and it was covered with ivy, briars.
27:31Literally, it was just like that castle.
27:34And we climbed in a window over there and started to explore.
27:41And you're still exploring.
27:44When they moved in, the most urgent task was to repair the roof,
27:47making the castle waterproof again.
27:49The main house has now been saved, but the west wing, including the chapel,
27:53is still in ruins.
27:56So, over the past 25 years, I mean, you've obviously done a huge amount of work to the castle.
28:02And you're still doing it.
28:05You're still doing it.
28:06But you have a lot of volunteers to stay with you now at the moment and help.
28:10Oh, the volunteers are fantastic.
28:13We wouldn't have gotten to this point without them.
28:16It's amazing.
28:17And they work for their food.
28:18They work for their food.
28:19Well, for the love of the place.
28:21Really.
28:22I mean, in the end, we're all volunteers.
28:25Because the building belongs to everybody.
28:29And it needs loads of love.
28:31It really needs love.
28:34The thing about castles is we regard them as objects of romance.
28:38And actually, that's why so many castles in Ireland were built in the late 18th,
28:42early 19th century, because they were perceived as being romantic
28:46and also because they were perceived as providing a kind of instant history.
28:51And you notice that families who wanted to associate themselves with the past
28:58and give a sense that they had a long line of forebears behind them
29:02very often built castles.
29:04Charleville Castle is the work of architect Francis Johnson,
29:08also responsible for two iconic structures on Dublin's O'Connell Street.
29:12The General Post Office, or the GPO, so symbolic with the 1916 Easter Rising,
29:17and opposite, Nelson's Pillar, blown up by the IRA in the 1960s.
29:22Francis Johnson, Richard Johnson and Richard Morrison were the three great exponents
29:27of Romantic Gothic architecture.
29:29And they all began as classicists.
29:31They could do Roman and classical.
29:33But at the end of the 18th century, the Romantic movement brought in all of this castles.
29:38And it was all at a one with kind of Romantic Irish nationalism.
29:42Francis Johnson came up with this new Gothic style,
29:46which is very different to the Gothic styles that were developing in Britain at the time.
29:50It's very French, Irish, English mixed.
29:54Experts in architecture would know this building.
29:57You know, sometimes we have experts coming from Russia or even from Japan
30:02who know of this style of architecture.
30:06The main feature of the ceiling here is the fan vaulted design,
30:10which is, you know, very kind of neo-Gothic.
30:13This room works really well acoustically.
30:17People come to play here, on their own even,
30:20just to experience the really good acoustics of the room.
30:23It's really the upside-down egg box thing.
30:26So, you know, if I go down there, I can be heard perfectly well up with the other room.
30:32There's no need for any kind of amplification in this room at all.
30:39You know, with their history of violent deaths, warring families,
30:42and all sorts of skullduggery,
30:44it's no wonder that so many Irish castles are haunted.
30:48Now, of course, stories are told, mainly at midnight,
30:51about a ghostly presence, cloaked strangers, white ladies,
30:56and all sorts of things that go bump in the night.
30:59Now, are these just restless spirits?
31:02Are they vivid imaginations?
31:04Or is it just faulty plumbing?
31:06Probably the most famous instance in terms of a ghost in the castle,
31:10and that's little Harriet.
31:12Have you seen Harriet?
31:13Oh, yeah.
31:16I've heard her more than I've seen her.
31:19Right.
31:20Um, when we first came to the castle,
31:23my son Michael went missing,
31:25and we were starting to get to that panic point.
31:27Yeah.
31:28You know yourself as a parent.
31:29Yes, yeah, yeah.
31:30We finally found him, after panicking,
31:32on the bottom of the staircase,
31:34which has been known now as Harriet's.
31:37And he said,
31:38little girl, help my hand.
31:39Then we researched,
31:41and found out indeed there was little girl Harriet
31:44that was almost eight when she fell on a midsummer's party,
31:48looking over to see if her friends were there.
31:51Charleville is also a magnet for those interested in the paranormal.
32:10According to the legend, Harriet was getting ready for a dinner,
32:15was sent upstairs to get changed by her governess,
32:19and on the way back down was messing on the stairs,
32:23slipped off the banister,
32:25and fell to her death.
32:35Right, so, Trace, tell me about this room.
32:37Well, this is the library.
32:39When Harriet fell from the staircase out there,
32:41is that this is the first place she was brought into after the accident,
32:45so basically she would have probably drawn her last breath in this room.
32:48After hearing about the tragedy of Harriet,
32:52I had to go one step further.
32:54Therese is a medium,
32:56and she's offered to try to contact the dead.
33:00Right, so that goes...
33:02What do we do?
33:03Put your finger on the glass.
33:05OK.
33:07But you have to ask the spirits.
33:08I'm going to ask, yeah.
33:09You can ask too if you want.
33:10None of you work away.
33:11None of you work away.
33:12If there are any spirits in this room here now present with us,
33:15could you please bring the glass forward to the gentleman standing in front of me?
33:19If there are any spirits here in this room with us now,
33:29could you please move this glass to the gentleman in front of me?
33:31See, I think you're confusing them by saying gentleman.
33:35I'm asking to move it towards you.
33:37Towards me, OK.
33:39If that was you, could you move the glass towards me, please?
33:41Could you direct the glass straight towards me?
33:43If that was you, could you move the glass towards me, please?
33:46Could you direct the glass straight towards me?
33:53Ask what they got the lotto numbers for next week.
33:56I'm going for a lie down.
34:04Charleville cost the first earl a fortune to build,
34:07and the family were eccentric and feckless with money.
34:11The income from the lands here in Ireland
34:14were spent on lavish parties in London
34:16and touring Europe in grand style.
34:19In fact, when the earl died in 1835,
34:22he was heavily in debt,
34:24so his son had to close up the castle and move abroad.
34:27Always more of a statement than a home.
34:29The last owner, Charles Howard Beury,
34:31well, he hated it.
34:33In fact, he insisted on living up the road
34:35in Belvedere House in Mullingar.
34:37Charleville Castle seems a folly now,
34:39a monument to the Irish craftspeople
34:41who built it for the Beury family
34:43after the suppression of the rebellion of 1798.
34:50I think what we need to appreciate about all old buildings
34:53is that they were built by Irish craftsmen.
34:58So it doesn't matter who lived in them,
35:00who created them.
35:01Our ancestors created them.
35:03Our ancestors were responsible
35:04for putting one stone on top of another,
35:06for designing, very often, the houses,
35:08for the plasterwork inside,
35:10for laying those floors,
35:12you know, for every detail within that building.
35:15Those were our forebears,
35:16and we should celebrate their skills
35:18and their craftsmanship,
35:20and we should appreciate, therefore,
35:21all that they achieved.
35:23What we have left, we should cherish.
35:28Despite once being the most castellated country
35:30in all of Europe,
35:32few of our castles still have descendants
35:34from the original families living in them.
35:36Most are now in ruins, or museums,
35:38or five-star hotels.
35:40Burr Castle is a glorious exception,
35:43still the family home of the Earl of Ross.
35:45The Parsons family have been living here
35:47since they were given the lands
35:49during the plantations of Offaly in the 17th century.
35:52Over the subsequent years,
35:54with wars off the agenda,
35:56the varied Earls of Ross
35:57distinguished themselves
35:58in more peaceful pursuits.
36:00Burr Castle was famous for its huge telescope,
36:03the Leviathan,
36:05built by the Third Earl in the 1840s.
36:07And for hundreds of years
36:08it was the biggest telescope in the world.
36:10So when William, the Third Earl of Ross,
36:13looked up into the night sky
36:14through his massive Leviathan,
36:16he realised that the universe
36:18was made up of infinite galaxies.
36:20In other words, he discovered
36:22that we were not alone.
36:24I suppose the interest of these men
36:27who had been educated,
36:28after all the enlightenment
36:29was just at the beginning
36:31of the 19th century,
36:33and people were being educated
36:35in the arts and sciences,
36:37and of course the only people
36:39that could afford the time
36:40to devote interest in these things
36:42were the landed class,
36:44who were the only people
36:45that had money at those times.
36:47When he decided to build
36:50the world's largest telescope
36:51and to do that
36:52it was all a matter
36:53of the size of the mirror
36:55in the telescope.
36:56It was a reflector telescope
36:57and that means
36:58you have to have a big,
36:59large reflector mirror.
37:01In those days,
37:02prior to the invention
37:03of Pyrex glass
37:04you had to make the mirrors from metal.
37:07The Third Earl did almost everything himself.
37:10In the remains of the moat
37:12you can see the big cooling ovens
37:14that were the key
37:15to the success of his massive mirror.
37:17The first time he made it,
37:20it cracked,
37:21and I believe it cracked
37:22the second time again.
37:23So he then realised
37:24he had to cool it very slowly
37:27and he built this oven
37:30that you could keep the heat up,
37:33but yeah, lower it slowly, slowly, slowly.
37:37And he took six weeks to cool it
37:40and it didn't crack.
37:44This has been a great trip for me.
37:46I've come from Minnesota
37:48in the United States
37:49just to see this telescope,
37:51the Leviathan of Parsonstown.
37:53It's historically
37:55such a phenomenal telescope.
37:57It really is the Hubble of its day.
37:59When initially they were looking at
38:02the sky,
38:04they saw these faint fuzzy objects
38:06and just thought they were little gas clouds
38:09and called them nebulae,
38:10short for gas cloud.
38:12But once they could see detail,
38:14then they knew at that point
38:16that these things had to be
38:17large collections of stars
38:19and therefore much further away
38:21than the Milky Way,
38:22maybe even similar to the Milky Way.
38:25And that meant the universe
38:26was much, much larger than people thought.
38:32And this is the eyepiece.
38:38You look into the small mirror,
38:40the secondary mirror,
38:41which is receiving light
38:42from the great mirror below.
38:44Of course, once you look through it,
38:46you had to quickly come to the drawing board
38:49and draw as accurately as you could
38:51what you saw.
38:53And you had to do this in the dark
38:55because with a candle or any form of light
38:59it would interfere with your eyesight.
39:01Lowell, in America,
39:03gets all of the credit for discovering
39:05that there are other galaxies.
39:07But in fact, the great Earl of Ross,
39:09the Earl, wrote very clearly,
39:12I have realised that these other
39:14lodges in the sky are other firmaments.
39:17He realised that they were outside the Milky Way,
39:19you know, and still not generally acknowledged
39:22that an Irishman did that.
39:23And the fact that 1,500 tonnes of turf
39:27had to be mined from the bog
39:29just for the cooling ovens
39:31when he was making that mirror,
39:32you know, it's the man who burnt a bog
39:34to discover a galaxy.
39:36The scientific tradition in Burr
39:38has continued into the 21st century.
39:41The current Earl is another tree collector
39:43and regularly travels to North Africa
39:45and China in search of rare plants.
39:48Ah, maybe there is, we are really lucky,
39:51a tiny bit of a flower left
39:54to see a tiny little pink bud
39:56of one of the magnolias
39:58that is just exceptionally late.
40:00Burr Castle is almost like
40:04the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin.
40:07You know, it has all sorts of extraordinary species
40:10and plants that you wouldn't find anywhere else.
40:13And in that sense,
40:14it's a very important place within Ireland.
40:18I'm really third generation tree buff,
40:21to quote what Thomas Backenham calls himself.
40:25This tree, which as you see
40:27is of lovely bluish hue against the blue sky,
40:30is the blue Atlas Cedar
40:32from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.
40:35This one my father would have brought himself,
40:38planted probably in the 1920s.
40:40I've continued that tradition,
40:42having collected largely in China itself.
40:47This tree, in a way, is the one
40:49we are proudest of all of,
40:51the populous kinesens, or grey popular.
40:55I don't know, as a tree hugger,
40:57I just do love just kind of getting up and hugging them
41:00and seeing how many people you need
41:02to go round to hug the whole of the tree.
41:05When Brendan Parsons inherited the castle in 1979,
41:09he had to tackle the massive cost of running it
41:11and maintaining the famous gardens.
41:13But then one didn't realise the huge responsibilities
41:15would come with it,
41:16where everyone would get the money to pay everyone
41:19enough people to look after the garden,
41:22but then had over a dozen gardeners, for instance.
41:26And it was a big, big headache
41:29when the day came and one learnt,
41:31tragically, the whole place was in debt
41:33and what everything cost.
41:35But as one got one's head round it,
41:38I loved it more and more and more.
41:40We're very glad that nobody made the house
41:45any bigger than it is,
41:47because at the moment it's big enough
41:49to try and heat and look after,
41:52and we continue, like the family has always done
41:56from the 17th century onwards,
41:58to hang on in here.
42:00The sun is also coming back
42:03and hoping to do the same one way or another.
42:07How appropriate that the family that is involved
42:09themselves with great plant-collecting expeditions
42:12over at least a century,
42:14at least over three generations,
42:16and have created one of the finest collections
42:18of rare specimen plants,
42:20particularly from Yunnan and obscure parts of China.
42:24That Lord Ross's son, Patrick,
42:27is married to a beautiful Chinese girl, Anna,
42:30and that we're going to have an Irish-Chinese-Irish countess
42:34in the castle.
42:36Without income from tenants' rents,
42:40these families have had to find new ways
42:42to maintain their historic homes.
42:44The current Lord and Lady Ross have opened up
42:46the parklands to the public,
42:48though the castle itself is still a private home.
42:51I mean, the temptation must be to turn it into a hotel
42:56or a museum.
42:57So you have to admire the families who hang on in there.
43:00Maintaining these windows into our past
43:02and keeping our history alive comes at a high price.
43:05I mean, imagine the roofs that have to be maintained,
43:07the gardens that have to be weeded.
43:09And as with the hoovering, ha!
43:11If it was me, it'd be a hotel in a heartbeat.
43:20I think because these buildings were such symbols,
43:23if you want, of imperialism, of colonialism,
43:26that there was no interest on the part of the state
43:29to say, actually, let's invest in them,
43:31let's make them part of our common heritage.
44:01To be careful!
44:02Drill.
44:20If they love the highest impact of their residents they have
44:23to be 밖에 away,
44:26we can Credit for more than that.