Location: Birr, County Offaly Map
Constructed: 17th century by Sir Laurence Parsons
Birr Castle is a residence situated in Birr,
County Offaly in Ireland. Birr Castle was constructed in 17th
century by Sir Laurence Parsons. Beginning in 1170, there was an
Anglo-Norman fortress here, and later from the fourteenth to
seventeenth century, the O'Carroll family ruled the territory known
as the “Ele O’ Carroll” (Irish Éile Uí Chearbhaill).
After the death of Sir Charles O’Carroll, Sir Lawrence Parsons was
granted Birr Castle and 1,277 acres (5.2 km²) of land in 1620.
Parsons drew the English masons to build a new castle on this site.
The new building was not built on the basis of the Black Tower
O’Carrolls (not preserved), but near its gatehouse at the gate.
Outbuildings were diagonally added to each side of the gatehouse,
which eventually formed a modern building plan.
After the death of Sir Lawrence Parsons and his eldest son, Richard,
the castle passed to his youngest son, William. During the Irish
uprising of 1641, William in Birr was besieged by Catholics for
fifteen months. After the Civil War, the son of William Lawrence (a
baronet from 1677) renovated the castle.
A later descendant, Lawrence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Ross, also
underwent a small reconstruction, increased the height of the castle
and gave it a Gothic look in the early nineteenth century. In turn,
his son, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Ross, built a huge telescope
in Birr. The work was completed in 1845, at that time it was the
largest telescope in the world, which could see more celestial
bodies and allowed to look further into space than any other
telescope. As a result, Birr became a center for astronomical
research, and the observatory was visited by guests from around the
world - including Charles Babbage and the Prince of the Empire.
When the third Earl died, his sons supported the scientific
tradition, and his successor (Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Ross)
was remembered for measuring the temperature of the moon. However,
after his death in 1908, the telescope malfunctioned, the mirror was
sent to the Museum of Science in London, and around 1914 its metal
supporting structures were remelted for the defense needs of the
First World War. In 1925, wooden supports near the walls were
dismantled for safety reasons. After several intermediate
restoration attempts, the telescope was completely restored in the
late nineties of the twentieth century.
The main feature of the castle lands is the so-called. The “large
telescope”, or Leviathan, of the third Earl of Ross, an astronomical
telescope with an 183-cm reflector. It was made in 1845 and has been
used for several decades, recent observations were made at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Its record size was surpassed by
the 254-cm Hawker telescope in 1917. The Leviathan, disassembled in
1914, was recreated in the 1990s and is now available to the public.
Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Ross and his mother were keen on
photography. Their photo lab, which is also open to the public, is
considered one of the oldest in the world.
On the grounds of the castle is the oldest wrought iron bridge in
Ireland; It dates from 1820.
Another feature of this area is the three-hundred-year-old hedge of
boxwood, which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the
highest in the world.