Gothic: building castles in post-Union Ireland

Lecture by Dr Judith Hill Castles speak, especially in an age when they are no longer necessary. The Act of Union of 1800 challenged the status of Irish landed proprietors, and not a few responded by building castles. In her latest publication Gothic: building castles in post-Union Ireland, Judith Hill explores the projects of two Irish proprietors: the Burys, later Lord and Lady Charleville, who commissioned Francis Johnston to design Charleville Castle, Tullamore; and Lawrence Parsons, later 3rd Earl of Rosse, who re-imagined seventeenth-century Parsonstown House as Birr Castle. (image: Charleville Castle )