A Surprise for Candee
As you know, we left Westport this morning to head for County Cork to spend our last few days in Ireland. Those who read last year's blog know that Candee was able to make connection with some members of her family on her mother's side - O'Callaghans. We also met with Owen O'Callaghan, a wealthy Cork City developer, who gave us a copy of the history of the O'Callaghan clan starting in ancient times. The family had been a powerful clan, ruling from the Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland's grand archeological treasures - a mixture of the royal and the ecclesiastical. Through the mists of time, it is said that the O'Callaghans were forced to flee from Cashel because it was believed that they had murdered the father of the most powerful of Ireland's ancient kings, Brian Boru. They headed south, in about 960 A.D., toward County Cork and the hamlet of Mallow. There, they constructed Dromaneen Castle; it stands today, a derelict along the Blackwater River. When we visited last year we visited the ruins of the castle and surveyed the beautiful house across the meadow and up a commanding hill - the Longueville House. I've surprised Candee with a night in this grand house. We'll have dinner here as well, and savor the produce and fish grown and caught on this ancient O'Callaghan land. And we will pretend we are the O'Callaghans of four hundred years ago who occupied this house before Cromwell's arrival in Ireland.
Please familiarize yourself with the information below, which comes from Longueville's brochure:
"Longueville is a Georgian 20-bedroom country house offering a very warm welcome, with open log fires, comfortable bedrooms with modern bathrooms.
It’s a place of history, yet Longueville has moved with the times. Maintaining and modernising the house has been a labour of love for third-generation owners William O’Callaghan and his wife Aisling, your hosts.
Beyond the farm, on our 500-acre wooded estate and gardens, you’ll spot duck, pheasant and hens, maybe even rare native red squirrels, badgers and songbirds.
Longueville is the perfect combination − a place to enjoy nature by day, then dress for gourmet dinner by night.
Longueville’s beautiful view of the Blackwater Valley belies a turbulent history. The house was built in 1720 by the Longfield family, who always maintained they were of French extraction and not Cromwellians.
Proprietor William O’Callaghan is a descendant of original owner Donough O'Callagahan. He fought beside the Catholics after the collapse of the 1641 Rebellion and forfeited the land to Cromwell. At this time, probably when Richard Longfield was created Baron Longueville in 1795, the family changed the name to Longueville.
Richard was later rewarded with a Viscountcy, probably receiving a large sum of money as compensation for losing his Parliamentary seat. He’s believed to have used it to add two wings, stone parapets and a pillared porch.
Longueville is typically late Georgian, with ornate Italian-designed ceilings, marble dining-room mantelpiece featuring a relief of Neptune in his chariot, rare, inlaid mahogany doors, and an unusual, full-height staircase.
On the East side, you’ll find a fine Victorian conservatory of curved ironwork added in 1866 by Richard Turner, the greatest ironmaster and designer of glasshouses of the Victorian era.
This is how Longueville is today − back in the hands of the O'Callaghan clan whose forebears were originally deprived of it by Cromwell in 1650."