Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-30

l ry, out-shames the whole world. Nearly all 1 the habitable castles of Ireland have been l standing less than two centuries. Most of 1 them have been built within the last centu- ". A very large number are not yet fifty | years old. Those which 1 have personally l inspected furnish excellent examples, in va- | lying dates of construction, styles of archi- l lecture and modes of life of their occupants. But one, the castle of Trim, in Meath, not 8 castle of residence serves in any way as an | architectural monument of the ancient An glo-Norman power in Erin. This is trian-
 gular-walled enclosure of grand proportions. ! Its three angles are respectively one hundred | and ninety two, one hundred and seventy
 one and one hundred ond sixteen yards long.
 It is defended by ten fanking and intermedi-
 ate towers. The walls, twelve feet thick at
 the base, are sixty feet high, and the tower ! walls are carried sixteen feet above these.
 It's donjon presents twenty massive angles.
 The others visited were Tanderagee, Dillon
 and Gosford, in county Armagh; Killea cas- tie, residence of the Duke of Leinster, and
 Castletown House, perhaps the finest coun-
 try residence in Ireland, built by Thomas
 Connolly, the great Irish Commoner, both in
 county Kildare; Lougheooter castle, in south
 western Galway; Castle Howard, famed for
 it's wood and river scenery, and the classic
 castle of Powerseourt, in county Wicklow; l the castle of Crom, in the Tudor style, the residence of the Earl of Erne, in county
 Fermanagh Ballymena Castle, the seat of Lord Waveny, and Glenarm Castle, princi- pal seat of the Earls of Antrim in county Antrim; the noble houses and demesnes of ! plain MT. Lambart and the Marquis of Co., | nyngham, at Beauparc, in county Meath; Cola Castle, Glenstale Castle and Adare Manor, in the Tudor style, with it's massive ! towers and perforated battlements, the seat | of the Earl of Dunraven, near Limerick; | Donald Lodge, residence of Countess Annes- ! ley, and Tullymore Park, demesne and resi- ! dence of Lord Roden, in county Down, on | the Irish sea; the splendid and curious War; ren's court, whose demesne possesses mini- ature Killarney. in county Cork, not far | from the ruins of Macroom Castle, the birth ] place of Admiral Sir William Penn, father | of the founder of Pennsylvania; Howth Cas- ! tie, near the harbor of Howth, whose doors | since 1898, until recently, have "always l stood open at the hour of dinner," in pursu- I ance of pledge exacted from it's then lord | by that famous western pira.e-oueen, Grace 1 OMally, or Grana Uile; and that venerable pile, with it's magnificent proportions, ma- jestic hankipg battlemented towers, and priceless stores of paintings, Malahide Cas- ! tie, near Dublin, entirely erected in the reign of Henry II. by the direct ancestor of it's ! present titled possessor.
 Strictly speaking, not a score of these l three hundred or more impressive structures | can properly be termed castles or fortified ! residences; although their proportions are ! really more imposing than those of the most 1 formidable earlier structures of Norman and ! Saxon origin throughout the United King 1 dom. The meat, the drawbridge, the sally | port, portcullis, the donjon or keep, and | usually the outer walls, are lacking. But in | a majority of the Irish castles the remaining l peculiarities, whatever the style of architec- 1 ture adopted, of the huge old Anglo Nor | man castle will be found. Their availabili- | ty for defense as against attack from every l thing save artillery is very noticeable. How l ever many thousand acres may comprise ! their demesnes, goodly portion if not all l of each, in most instances, is surrounded by | stone wall from fifteen to twenty feet high, ! it's peak set with savage chevaux de frise of broken glass; merlons of parapets and tower battlements are constructed for pro- tection to defenders; suggestive loop-holes and embrasures, quite unnecessary for light, l will be seen at various heights in hanking towers; and 8 peep at the arsenal alongside
 the stables will disclose from fifty to one
 hundred stands of Enfield rifles we'll cared
 for, with small arms and accouterments in-
 numerable. The cost of these great struc- ! lures will be found to have varied from half l million to two, three and sometimes four million dollars In plan and arrangement Tanderagee Castle in county Armagh is an excellent average structure. The castle and magnificent demesne surrounding it are the property of one of the oldest houses of Eng.
 land, that of Manchester. The sixth duke 1 of Manchester, father of the present. venera-
 ble and really noble duke of Manchester, expended vast sums upon the grounds and the foundations of Castle Tanderagee, his
 expenditures being greatly surpassed by that of his son in completing and furnishing the castle. Over g million and half pounds sterling have been used. For many years | the place was the resort and pride of the duke and duchess, who was the Countess l Louise Fredrica Augusta von Alten of Han ] over. Advancing age caused their retiracy l to their really inferior, though vaster, Eng fish estates, when Tanderagee was turned l over to the uses of that luminous windbeu- l tel, Viscount George Victor Drogo Mande- l vile, their eldest son and ducal heir, nearly l as we'll known in the States as in Europe. l It was this interesting scion who, in 1876, l married the beautiful Senorita Yznaga, | daughter of Senor Antonio Yznsga del | Valle, of Louisiana and Cuba, and who a | few days since was stranded in the London Bankrupt court on shoal of debts amount
 ing to something like half million dollars.
 Climbing the long, wide, hilly street of the ancient town of Tanderagee, you are | confronted at its head, where the street ! turns to the right and blends gradually into l an Irish country stone road, with massive | walls, behind which tremendous sycamores l can alone be seen. To the left, suggestively
 defensible, and jutting out of the wall itself, l is the "agent's' office, little fortress of it. l self. Before you is an arch thirty feet high,
 barred by enormous oaken gates, with equal
 ly formidable iron gates ready in time of
 trouble to be securely shut into place. To | the right, following the road and wall, is @
 long public mall, formed by broad walk extending from the base or the outer wall, from behind which and within the de- mesne sycamores rise and reach their long
 arms far across the walk to the very ground in the middle of the road beyond. | In this mall in the sunniest days it is al-
 ways twilight. The outer gate passed, to
 the right and left two scenes of great beau
 ty are presented. That to the right be-
 tween the outer walls and the castle shows a quaint two-century old church aud
 church-yard embedded in the foliage of
 massive trees; while to the left, extending downward, first almost precipitously from
 the eminence upon which the castle stands,
 and thence for nearly mile with gentle
 curve to the demesne valley beyond, is the
 famous "Dark Walk" an avenue or twi-
 light hecked by sunlight thinly filtered
 through the over-arching, inter-lacing
 branches of side-rows of the grandest syca-
 mores either England or Ireland dis
 close. Proceeding perhaps one hundred
 yards, the castle walls themselves loom
 above you. They comprise an immense
 castle at the center of some grand facade,
 you are driven through gates as massive as those of the outer walls, beneath the walls
 of the castle itself. Across the court the
 opposite walls are similarly pierced for exit
 into the grounds of the demesne. To the
 left, beneath the entrance arch and within
 the gates, you step immediately to the state
 entrance, plain and massive at it's exterior.
 but opening to lovely and exquisite corridors
 in marble, which in turn lead to the grand
 salons of the castle. Thus the structure is
 built wholly about 8 great quadrangular paved court, from one end of which fise the
 imposing ducal apartments in three stories,
 with total height of one hundred feet;
 these being surmounted by fanking and in- termediate battlemented towers at the cor-
 ners and sides of the main square of the
 castle. From this the two extended sides of
 the building reach to the rear of the court, @
 distance of one hundred and fifty yards, in
 two lofty stories, joining the opposite end, the latter architecturally treated in miniature
 of the residence portion; and these side
 walls are surmounted at intervals by lesser
 battlemented towers, those above the castle
 gates being most elaborate and massive in
 treatment The lofty second story opposite
 the entrance is wholly devoted to guests
 chambers. These are about fifty in number,