And now for a little edumacation; Lismore Castle has been the Irish home of the Dukes of Devonshire since 1753. There has been a castle at Lismore ever since 1185 when Prince John built a “castellum” on the present site. When John became King of England he handed the Castle over to the Church and it was used as a Bishop’s Palace until 1589. The earliest remaining part of the Castle is a round tower, which dates back to the 13th Century.
In 1589 the Castle was leased and later bought outright by Sir Walter Raleigh.
In 1602, when Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London for high treason, he sold Lismore along with 42,000 acres for £1,500 to Richard Boyle, who later became the first Earl of Cork. Richard Boyle’s youngest son, Robert Boyle, the philosopher and father of modern chemistry, was born at Lismore in 1626.
Ok, enough of the history lesson. I’ve been meaning to get down to Lismore with camera in tow to shoot a few photos of this amazing castle for months. Ironic then that I’d pick today to do it; seeing as the castle isn’t actually open to the public until April. I decided to take a few sneaky shots, the slink off over the horizon before the Duke of Devonshire shot at me with an elephant gun. At least TV would have me believe that Dukes shoot at peasants with elephant guns from their lofty castle windows all the time. Damned if I was going to stick around to get an assfull of buckshot.
As an uninteresting side-note; is this my first 100% black & white set of photos? I’ll have to browse around and see if there are any others. I know I killed a few of them trying to go uber-high contrast but I’m not too bothered as I’ll be going back down to Lismore in the coming months to completely re-shoot the castle & grounds. This time, the bloody place will be open. Until then, this.