Glin Castle

Glin Castle is a romantic castellated mansion enjoying a glorious setting within some 380 acres of mature parkland and benefiting from being superbly positioned overlooking the Shannon estuary, on the periphery of attractive Glin village and less than 1 hour’s drive of Limerick city centre and Shannon International airport.

RICH PROVENANCE

One of Ireland’s most historic properties Glin Castle has been in the FitzGerald family, hereditary Knights of Glin, for over 700 years. The romantic and fairytale title of the Knight of Glin dates back to the early 13th Century. The title is an anomaly, akin to Irish chieftainships, and illustrates the Gaelicization of a powerful Norman family. In spite of the usual series of massacres, attainders, and confiscations, the Knights of the Glen, or Valley, have somehow managed to retain their lands at Glin for over seven centuries.

IMPRESSIVE INTERIORS

The castle has superb interiors with decorative plasterwork and notable collections of Irish furniture and paintings. The front hall with a screen of Corinthian columns and a neo-Classical ceiling leads to the great ‘flying staircase’ and a gracefully decorated Venetian window looking out on the gardens. All the other reception rooms lead off this enfilade and the drawing room, with its bowed front window, has charmingly naïve plaster decoration. In the library a broken pedimented mahogany bookcase artfully conceals a door leading back to the staircase hall.

FERTILE ESTATE

Gloriously positioned within some 23 acres of mature pleasure grounds made up of well thought out formal gardens and delightfully informal gardens, that seamlessly link to the wider parkland estate and woodland walks. A dairy farm is centrally positioned within the remainder of the estate and is worked as a commercial enterprise. Three sets of gingerbread lodges, on modelled on the family crest of twin turrets, ‘defend’ the demesne entrances.

“Glin is surely the beau ideal of an Irish country house, grand yet intimate.” Hugh Montgomery Massingberd in Great Houses of Ireland (London, 1999)