Glin Castle, County Limerick

Glin Castle


The present castle of Glin is really a plain Georgian House with later castellations and many windows - locally they used to say there was a window for every day of the year!

It was originally built in the late 17th century as a long thatch house when the knights moved in from the old castle a half mile to the west. This is incorporated into the long west wing of the present house.

It is probable that this long house was turned into a T, with an extension facing east, in the first half of the 18th century as the present secondary staircase, the dining room and smoking rooms have a basement beneath them.

However, some large rooms must have been built during this period as the full length portrait of the Duellist Knight, Richard FitzGerald, which dates from before 1736, must have hung somewhere. Richard Fitzgerald's nephew, Colonel John FitzGerald, who eventually succeeded in 1781, made a larger block of the house in the 1780s by adding a hall, a grand staircase and two more reception rooms - the drawing room and library.
The Castle Man