At the time of the siege, Bunratty Castle was the home of Sir Barnabas O'Brien (6th Earl of Thomand). Barnabas O’Brien was the son of Donough. He had been raised by Elizabeth I who had fought for the crown at the Siege of Kinsale. Barnabas attended the University of Oxford and was married to an English noblewoman. He was one of the wealthiest men in Ireland, holding 120,230 acres in 1641 and residing in the magnificent Bunratty Castle which was described by papal nuncio Rinucinni as ‘the loveliest of any place of any kind that I have yet seen (in Ireland), worthy of a king, with gardens the likes of which put Italy's to shame.