Ormond Castle is a castle on the River Suir

River Suir

The River Suir is a river in Ireland that flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Waterford after a distance of .Popular with anglers, it holds plentiful reserves of brown trout...

 on the east side of Carrick-on-Suir

Carrick-on-Suir

Carrick-on-Suir is a town in South Tipperary in Ireland. As the name – meaning "the rock of the Suir" – suggests, the town is situated on the River Suir. The of the town gives the population as 5,906 and shows that it has grown by 5.7% since 2002...

, County Tipperary

County Tipperary

County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The oldest part of the existing castle is a mid-15th century walled bawn

Bawn

A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word badhún meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure". The Irish word for "cow" is bó and its plural is ba...

, cornered on the northeast and northwest by towers.

History of Ormonde Castle

Built before 1315, the original castle was acquired that year by the Butler Family. James Butler would eventually be granted the title 1st Earl of Ormond.

The Manor House

Sometime after 1565, Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde

Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde

Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde and 3rd Earl of Ossory, Viscount Thurles , was an Irish peer and the son of James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond and Lady Joan Fitzgerald daughter and heiress-general of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond...

, (referred to sometimes as the 10th Earl of Ormonde) spent many years at the court of his cousin, through Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

, Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

. He carried from England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 a regard for Elizabethan-style architecture, and added a Tudor

Tudor architecture

The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...

 manor house to the property, the first of its kind in Ireland.

In the 17th century the house was a favourite residence for James Butler

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde PC was an Irish statesman and soldier. He was the second of the Kilcash branch of the family to inherit the earldom. He was the friend of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who appointeed him commander of the Cavalier forces in Ireland. From 1641 to 1647, he...

, the 'Great Duke of Ormonde', but the Butlers abandoned the home after James' death in 1688. The home remained a possession of the family until the middle of the 20th century. In 1947 the house was given over to state agencies who restored the historic structures.

The manor house is enhanced by the mullion

Mullion

A mullion is a vertical structural element which divides adjacent window units. The primary purpose of the mullion is as a structural support to an arch or lintel above the window opening. Its secondary purpose may be as a rigid support to the glazing of the window...

ed windows on both floors to the front and the oriel windows of the porch in the centre of the facade. The gallery on the first floor features two carved stone chimney

Chimney

A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...

 pieces and a ceiling

Ceiling

A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limit of a room. It is generally not a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the floor or roof structure above....

 and frieze

Frieze

thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...

 of Elizabethan plaster

Plaster

Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...

-work.

The U-shape of the manor house surrounds a small courtyard

Courtyard

A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....

 that abuts the north of the castle's bawn. The manor has two floors and a gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

d attic

Attic

An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...

.

The most notable restoration achievement was that of the long gallery on the first floor of the front facade, where the ceiling had largely collapsed. This room, once hung with tapestries, has a magnificent limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 fireplace bearing the date 1565, and has stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

 representations of Queen Elizabeth flanked by Equity and Justice

Justice

Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

. It is said that she had promised her cousin that she would one day visit.

External links

• Ormond Castle - official site at Heritage Ireland