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CASTLEREA |
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CASTLEREA ( An Caisléan Riabhach , "The Grey Castle"), south of
Frenchpark on the R361, is Roscommon's third most important town after
Roscommon and Boyle. It's an unprepossessing place, only worth stopping
in to visit Clonalis House (June to mid-Sept Tues-Sun 11am-5.00pm;
£3.50/¬4.44), just outside the town to the west. Clonalis is the
ancestral home of the O'Conor clan, which claims to be Europe's oldest
family; it is, in fact, one of the few ancient Gaelic families - the
O'Conors were traditional Kings of Connacht and last High Kings of
Ireland, and can trace their family back to one Feredach the Just in 75
AD - although an even more fanciful family tree preserved in the house
goes back to the fifteenth century BC. If you're expecting the house
itself to be ancient, however, you're in for a disappointment - it's a
Victorian pile, albeit an engagingly Italianate one, of 1878. Unlike
most noble Irish families, the O'Conors always remained Catholic and,
although their royal past allowed them to hang on to some of their
ancestral lands, they weren't in a position to flaunt their wealth -
much of it derived from astute marriages to rich heiresses - until the
late nineteenth century.
The house, still very much lived in, is a fascinating jumble of
furniture, paintings - many of them portraits charting the family's
colourful history at home and abroad - and mementos. There's a modest
chapel displaying a penal chalice, which unscrews into three parts to
make it easy to hide. The manuscript room contains the oldest surviving
judgement under the ancient Irish Brehon law system, as well as a number
of letters from Douglas Hyde . Pride of place, however, goes to the harp
of the blind harpist Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738 ), who numbered the
then O'Conor Don among his patrons.
The house aside, there's no need to linger in Castlerea apart perhaps to
visit Hell's Kitchen , an antiques-packed pub on the main street on the
corner of the Boyle Road, describing itself as "the only national museum
with a licence".
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