Ireland · 19th century
Waterford Castle ranks #5,458 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #92 of the 178 mapped in Ireland. Founded 1895, one of 705 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Waterford, 4 km away. See how Ireland compares in the castle statistics.
Waterford Castle is a historic house on Little Island in Waterford, Ireland. The house was owned by a branch of the Fitzgerald family for hundreds of years, but was developed into a hotel in the 1980s.
The original Fitzgerald castle was probably a tower-house or fortified house and was described as a square building with battlements erected in the 16th century, with a pointed doorway and a window flanked by a stone head. The branch of the Fitzgerald family that owned Waterford Castle were the descendants of Patrick Fitzgerald, son of the de jure 6th Earl of Kildare.
The current castle is a Gothic-style house built in 1895 for Gerald Purcell-Fitzgerald (1865-1946) which incorporates the fabric of an earlier (pre-1845) house, and parts of the medieval (pre-1645) tower-house. The designs were prepared by Romayne Walker and supervised by Albert Murrary (1849 - 1924). The construction is in unrefined rubble stone with fine cut-stone quoins and window frames and topped with Irish-style battlements.
Text adapted from “Waterford Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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