Ormonde Castle
Ormonde Castle is situated on the River Suir near Carrick on Suir, 16 miles north of Waterford in the south of Ireland.
Ormonde Castle is a fully restored Elizabethan manor house surrounding a small courtyard. The house is built over two floors with a gabled attic and two of the original four towers from the original building.
Facilities
The castle is open to the public and access to the interior is by guided tour only. Visitors can see a variety of historical documents along with fine plasterwork and murals including one of Queen Elizabeth I.
The gallery on the first floor; sixty feet in length, has a large limestone fireplace and a stucco ceiling with heraldic symbols. This room is perhaps the greatest achievement of the restoration project as the ceiling was in a collapsed state.
The castle is open to the public daily from the beginning of May until the end of September between 10am and 6pm.
The original tower house on the site was built in 1309 with the 1st Earl of Ormonde, James Butler, being the first of the family to occupy the castle in 1315.
Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde and also known as the 10th Earl of Ormonde, divided his time between Ormonde and the court of Queen Elizabeth I his cousin at the invitation of Anne Boleyn. It was here that he found an appreciation for Elizabethan architecture and added the first Tudor mansion onto Ormonde Castle in the years after 1565. The remodeling included beautiful interiors with carved chimneys and the decoration of its ceilings with friezes.
The 'Great Earl of Ormonde', James Butler lived spent much of his time at Ormonde and was the last of the family to reside at the castle. On his death in 1688 the family abandoned the property and it was only in 1947 that they eventually handed the castle over to the government who then became responsible for its restoration.