'Well, you will have to burn me in it, boys': The remarkable tale of Glin Castle, and its unlikely survival through two centuries of turmoil

By private act of Parliament, passed on June 20, 1801, an attempt was made to rationalise the hopelessly involved affairs of John FitzGerald, Knight of Glin. As the long text of this bill ‘for raising by sale or mortgage monies sufficient to pay off incumbrances’ makes clear, his problems were inherited. They had at their heart the profligacy of his uncles and an attempt by his father, Thomas, two decades previously, in April 1781, to make generous financial provision for all his children. The resulting demands for money, interest payments and the steady multiplication of legal cases far outstripped his considerable income of about £4,000 a year.

In ordinary circumstances, the situation would have been ruinous. Fortunately for FitzGerald, however, his difficulties coincided with a period of sustained political upheaval in Ireland that culminated in the violence of the 1798 Rebellion. One direct consequence was the Act of Union that brought Irish MPs to Westminster for the first time in January 1801 and, in turn, made possible the act of Parliament to settle his affairs. The sheer complexity of the competing legal claims, meanwhile, undermined any attempt to dispose of the estate in an organised fashion. FitzGerald also successfully argued in court that none of his inheritance should be sold at less than its true value, frustrating two attempts at fire sales.

As the act presents it, FitzGerald had materially added to the value of his heavily mortgaged property both by fighting to maintain it and expending ‘six thousand pounds and upwards in building a mansion house and offices, and making plantations and other valuable and lasting improvements upon the said estate’. Given all his other difficulties, quite where money for this new house had come from is unclear. The likelihood must be that it was provided by the dowry of his wife, Margaretta Maria, née Gwyn, the daughter of a wealthy Dorset family, whom he married in 1789. Whatever the case, the investment created most of what is now known as Glin Castle.

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FitzGerald’s house was new, but his family association with Glin — which continues to the present day — was not. The FitzGeralds are descendants of the great Anglo-Norman dynasty known as the Geraldines. In 1169, Maurice FitzGerald, son of the castellan of Pembroke and the Welsh princess Nesta, came to Ireland as an adventurer to help restore Diarmait Mac Murchada, exiled king of Leinster, to his kingdom. In the conquest of Ireland that famously ensued, two branches of the family — those of the Earls of Kildare and the Earls of Desmond — became established.

The latter branch, the so-called Geraldines of Desmond, secured extensive territories in Limerick, Kerry and Waterford and intermarried locally. They also further divided over the course of the Middle Ages — and in slightly uncertain circumstances — established three junior lines, titled respectively the White Knight, the Knight of Kerry and the Knight of Glin. According to tradition, these hereditary titles — for which there is no British parallel — were bestowed by Edward III on the three younger brothers of the Earl of Desmond after the English victory over the Scots at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the late-13th-century figure of Sir John FitzJohn, or Seán Mór na Sursainge, is claimed as the first Knight of Glin. The last in the line, the father of the present owner, who died in 2011, and whose remarkable legacy will be described in the next article, was the 29th. Several figures in this exceptionally long lineage have been further distinguished by titles that reflect their colourful exploits. They include Edmund of Battles, who died in 1628, the Spanish Knight, who died in 1659, and the Duellist, who died in 1775. There is an unusually large historical literature about this colourful family in both Gaelic and English.

The seat of the Knights of Glin was originally in the town of Glin, at what is now known as the Old Castle. Its ruinous tower still commands the main bridge over the River Glencorbry, close to where it meets the Shannon. It was twice besieged by government forces in 1600 and 1642 and stands as a monument to the Gaelic and Catholic sympathies of the family in the 16th and 17th centuries. During the 18th century, however, the Old Castle seems to have been abandoned in favour of a modest nearby ‘lodge’, which probably stood close to the present house.

Meanwhile, as a means of retaining property and influence, the family married into Protestant families and the four brothers who consecutively inherited the estate and title in 1730, 1737, 1763 and 1775 conformed in almost perfect sequence to the Anglican communion. It was the last of these who handed an accumulation of difficulties

to John FitzGerald, his young son and the builder of the present house, in 1781. FitzGerald choice of a Dorset bride in 1789 marked an important break with the past. The Knights of Glin had always married into Irish families, yet he was described in 1781 as an absentee landlord. Newspaper reports, meanwhile, imply that Glin Lodge was leased out or in the hands of creditors.

In short, the probability must be that he was living in England when he met his future wife. There remained, however, a strong streak of Anglo-Irish patriotism as well, expressed not only by his eventual return, but his early involvement with the volunteer movement. Established to protect Ireland from French invasion and inspired by the American Revolution, the volunteers briefly became a major political force in Irish politics. A portrait in the hall shows FitzGerald posing beside a cannon in the uniform of the Royal Glin Artillery Company, one of three volunteer regiments with which he was associated.

Given his circumstances, it’s no surprise that FitzGerald desired a modern house, but there is no documentary record of who created it for him. The site chosen stands just outside the village, on a gentle slope that drops to the Shannon. In the 18th century, the broad mouth of the river — which is about three miles wide at this point — would have been busy with traffic sailing to and from the prosperous port of Limerick nearly 25 miles upstream. It’s likely that the builder and craftsmen who worked on the building came from the city. All its more sophisticated architectural detailing could easily have been copied from published treatises of the period.

The main house is rectangular in plan and three storeys high with flanking bows to the front and rear (Fig 1). These bow windows are, respectively, semi-circular and faceted in plan, a curious contrast. The two also incorporate distinct forms of fenestration, the former inset with mullions and transoms. Are we looking at evidence of one façade having been heavily remodelled in the 19th century? A long, low service range extends to one side of the building and may cannibalise the modest remains of Glin Lodge.

The central front door has a Doric doorcase with a fanlight above. It takes the visitor into a spacious hall that — unusually — runs into the depth of the building rather than across it (Fig 2). A fine decorative plaster ceiling covers the interior, its detailing picked out in colour. Incorporated within it are the impaled arms of FitzGerald and his wife as well as the Irish harp, insignia of the volunteers, and a hunting horn. There are also figures emblematic of Justice, War and Peace. The detailing reflects a restrained neo-Classical taste distantly conscious of the work of Robert Adam and James Wyatt.

A screen of columns defines the hall threshold and at the far end of the room is a fireplace of imported Portland stone flanked by doors that open into a fine staircase beyond. The stair splits at a half landing, creating a grandeur of form slightly beyond the scale of the building (Fig 6). A Venetian window lights the stair and the interior is ornamented with decorative plasterwork repainted in the mid 19th century, the latter work attributed to the Dublin firm Sibthorpe.

To either side of the hall and stair are the four principal polite interiors of the house including what are today a drawing room, dining room (Fig 5), sitting room and library. These include a fine series of marble fireplaces, although several are 20th-century imports from other houses (Fig 3). The library also incorporates a fine, pedimented bookcase that conceals a jib door. The principal bedrooms occupied the first floor and, curiously, the top floor remained unfinished with bare walls into the late 20th century.

FitzGerald died in June 1803, two years after his wife, and his precarious finances immediately forced a sale of the contents of the house and the mortgage of the property. He was succeeded by his 12-year-old son, another John. Educated at Winchester and Cambridge, he reputedly revitalised the family fortunes through gambling and became known as the Knight of the Women. A fluent Irish speaker, he established a reputation as a scholar of medieval Gaelic poetry and became a member of the Royal Irish Academy in the 1820s, as well as a founder of the Irish Archaeological Society in 1841.

This combination of interests almost certainly explains his recasting of Glin as a castle, the only kind of residence suitable for a figure with his lineage. The change was effected cosmetically with the addition of a cresting of battlements and can probably be precisely dated with reference to newspaper reports. On September 16, 1826, the Limerick Chronicle reported the theft of the Knight’s sheep from Glin ‘house’, but on March 14, 1827 (and consistently thereafter), the same paper listed the ‘Knight of Glin of Glin Castle’ as a member of the Grand Jury for Limerick County. Probably at the same time he added other castellated lodges to the estate (Fig 4).

In 1830, FitzGerald was lampooned by political enemies in one scurrilous verse that included the lines ‘His vices have made, and still make him, so poor/That Bailiff or Creditor’s ne’er from the door/But deep tho in debt, yet he’s deeper in sin/That lecherous, treacherous Knight of the Glin.’ Rather more flattering is a description in The history, topography and antiquities of the county and city of Limerick (1826). ‘The Knight of Glin,’ it reports, ‘resides in a noble mansion built by his father; and he appears anxious, in every respect, to promote the happiness of his tenantry, who are, in consequence, generally comfortable and contented.’

In fairness, he did prove a supportive landowner during the Great Famine and died in 1854 of cholera, apparently contracted at a poorhouse that he served as a governor. The subsequent history of Glin into the 20th century is more one of personalities than architectural change. His heir, another John, became known as ‘The Cracked Knight’ for his impulsive and eccentric behaviour. He had a fascination with chamberpots and allegedly burnt the family papers.

In 1866, Desmond ‘the Big Knight’, succeeded him and abandoned the management of the estate to his wife, Isabella, née Lloyd Apjohn. This was another period of political ferment in Ireland, culminating in the Land War of 1879–82, and the estate was pushed deep into debt. His son and heir, yet another Desmond, succeeded as 27th Knight of Glin in 1895. Following the Land Act of 1903, he sold a large portion of the estate, as well as another family property, Riddlestown. Some furnishings from this house now survive at Glin. In 1923, during the Irish Civil War, the castle narrowly escaped destruction after the Knight of Glin reputedly told the arsonists who came to destroy it: ‘Well, you will have to burn me in it, boys.’

In 1929, the 28th Knight of Glin married Veronica Villiers, a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill, and the couple set about restoring the castle with limited means. Following the Knight’s early death from tuberculosis in 1949, however, his son, aged 12, succeeded to the title. Then, a few years later, in 1954, Veronica remarried to a wealthy Canadian businessman, Horatio Milner.

It was Milner’s fortune that saved Glin Castle and its estate from ruin in the late 1950s. In the next article, we will turn to the achievement of Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin, his wife, Olda, and now his daughter Catherine in preserving the castle through 21st-century challenges.

Find out more at the Glin Castle website.

This feature originally appeared in the print issue of Country Life on April 22, 2026. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.