Dardistown Castle is a castle and country house situated in parkland near

Julianstown Julianstown () is a village in County Meath, Ireland. It is located near Drogheda on the R132 regional road. In 1641, the Battle of Julianstown was fought here during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Julianstown is situated on the River Nanny ...

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

a few miles south of Drogheda. The medieval castle itself is a large four-storey medieval tower house to which a Victorian residential frontage has been added. The tower is square with sides about 44 feet long and 50 feet high, with a turret at each corner. The ground floor contains the main room with vaulted smaller rooms in three of the four turrets. The fourth turret contains an anti-clockwise spiral staircase. All the upper floors have wooden ceilings and fireplaces in each main room. The corner turrets are higher than the rest of the tower and have a small flight of stairs leading to the turret roof. The staircase turret leads to a parapet walk. The residential extensions were added around 1750 with the addition of a front hall, drawing room and dining room, to which upper floors were later added. Other extensions were added around 1800 and the frontage was built in 1860.

History

In 1449, William Nugent was discharged 20 marks for not building a castle at Dardistown in Meath, and had his letters patent annulled. In the 7th and 8th years of Edward IV's reign, the manor was freed from the charges. During the Hundred Years' War, grants of £10 were issued to landowners in

the Pale The Pale (Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast st ...

to construct fortified houses to aid in their defence in the army's absence. Dardistown Castle was built in 1465 by John Cornwalsh,

Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer The Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was the Baron ( judge) who presided over the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). The Irish Court of Exchequer was a mirror of the equivalent court in England and was one of the four courts which sat in the build ...

with such a grant. It was extended in the 16th century by Dame Jenet Sarsfield, widow of

Robert Plunkett, 5th Baron of Dunsany Robert Plunkett, 5th Baron Dunsany (died 1559) was an Anglo-Irish nobleman of the Tudor period. Background He was the only surviving son of Edward Plunkett, 4th Baron of Dunsany and his wife Amy (or Anny) de Bermingham, daughter of Philip de ...

and of Sir John Plunket of Dunsoghly Castle, Dublin, who added a new entrance and other extensions. The

battle of Julianstown The Battle of Julianstown was fought on 27 November 1641 near Julianstown in County Louth during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. A force sent by the Dublin government to reinforce the garrison of Drogheda was ambushed by Irish rebels and nearly d ...

in 1641 is said to have been fought on the front lawn of the castle when the house was occupied by Richard Talbot: the Talbots, who were related by marriage to Jenet Sarsfield, had inherited it in about 1600. The castle later came into the hands of the Osborne family who occupied it until recently. Francis Osborne was M.P. for

Navan Navan ( ; , meaning "the Cave") is the county town of County Meath, Ireland. In 2016, it had a population of 30,173, making it the tenth largest settlement in Ireland. It is at the confluence of the River Boyne and Blackwater, around 50&nb ...

from 1692 to 1703. Henry Osborne (d.10 May 1828) also owned Cooperhill Brickworks which supplied red bricks to many of Drogheda's buildings, including Saint Joseph's Convent (1896), Dublin Road. He also bought the horse pulling a stagecoach in 1827 which later gave birth to Abd-El-Kader, the first successive

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...

s winner (for his trainer son Joseph) in 1850 and 1851. The castle then passed via Samuel Henry Osborne to Henry St. George Osborne, who died in 1899 and after him to his son Henry Ralph Osborne, who died in the 1970s. In 2003 it was owned by Lizanne Allen. Today the upper floors of the tower have been made available to rent and the castle is open to the public two days a week for most of the year.

References

External links

Official website
{{coord, 53, 40, N, 6, 19, W, display=title, region:IE_type:landmark_source:GNS-enwiki Castles in County Meath Houses in County Meath Country houses in Ireland