Lismore Castle

Lismore Castle
County Waterford, Ireland
Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford
Lismore Castle
Coordinates	52°08′20″N 7°55′59″W / 52.139°N 7.933°W / 52.139; -7.933
Type	Victorian
Site information
Owner	Cavendish family
Condition	Inhabited, grounds open to the public
Site history
Built	most current structures circa 1850
Built by	Dukes of Devonshire
Materials	Assorted

Lismore Castle is the Irish home of the Duke of Devonshire. Located in the town of Lismore in County Waterford in Ireland, it belonged to the Earls of Desmond, and subsequently to the Dukes of Devonshire from 1753. It was largely re-built in the Gothic style during the mid-nineteenth century by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.

Built in 1185 by Prince John, the castle site was originally occupied by Lismore Abbey, an important monastery and seat of learning established in the early 7th century. It was still an ecclesiastical centre when Henry II, King of England stayed here in 1171, and except for a brief period after 1185 when his son King John of England built a 'castellum' here, it served as the episcopal residence of the local bishop. It was a possession of the Earls of Desmond, whose lands were broken up during the plantations following the killing of Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond in 1583.

In 1589, Lismore was leased and later acquired by Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh sold the property during his imprisonment for High Treason in 1602 to another infamous colonial adventurer, Richard Boyle, later 1st Earl of Cork.

Boyle came to Ireland from England in 1588 with only twenty-seven pounds in capital and proceeded to amass an extraordinary fortune. After purchasing Lismore he made it his principal seat and transformed it into a magnificent residence with impressive gabled ranges each side of the courtyard. He also built a castellated outer wall and a gatehouse known as the Riding Gate. The principal apartments were decorated with fretwork plaster ceilings, tapestry hangings, embroidered silks and velvet. It was here in 1626 that Robert Boyle The Father of Modern Chemistry, the fourteenth of the Earl's fifteen children, was born. The castle descended to another Richard Boyle, 4th Earl of Cork & 3rd Earl of Burlington, who was a noted influence on Georgian architecture (and known in architectural histories as the Earl of Burlington).