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Archiver > ONEALL > 1996-10 > 0845406134


From: " Jill" <>
Subject: Shane's Castle, Antrim
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 09:02:14 -1000


Fantastic stuff follows here about our O'Neill's Irish Catle, where
Irish immigrant Hugh O'Neill/O'Neall came from in 1730:

~~~Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa from.....Jill ~~~
http://www.maui.net/~mauifun/genweb.htm

>
>
> The post below was on the GenUki listserv, I didn't know if you got it.
> <Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 08:13:19 +1000
> From: Anne Cropley <>
> Subject: O'NEILL - Shane's Castle, Randalstown, Antrim
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Greg O'Neill wrote:
> >From: "Greg A. O'Neill" <>
> >Subject: Shanes Castle
> >My ggg grandfather, Andrew O'Neill was born, 9/23/1766, at
> >Shanes Castle, County Antrim, Ireland. Looking for other
> >O'Neills who were born on the "ancient O'Neill estates".
> >The parish was Drammaul. Any comments on Shanes Castle
> >at that time?? Thank you, Greg O'Neill
>
> There is a printed genealogy of the O'Neill family of Shane's
> Castle, Randalstown, Antrim, in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage,
> 105 editions from 1826 onwards. (You might also check if this
> family is listed in G.E. Cockayne's Peerage). The following
> is from Burke's Guide to Country Houses, Ireland by Mark
> Bence-Jones publ.1978:
>
> The original C17 castle here, by the side of Antrim Bay at the
> north-eastern corner of Lough Neagh, took its name from Shane
> McBrian O'Neill (Shane, the son of Brian O'Neill), a scion of the
> ancient Irish Royal House, who was allowed to keep 120,000 acres
> of his lands after the Plantation of Ulster. It grew into a large
> C18 castellated house, of 3 storeys over a basement, with a
> battlemented parapet, projecting end bays and curved bows; its
> principal front being at right angles to the water's edge. A
> lakeside terrace and a conservatory or orangery was built across
> the end of the castle some time ante 1784, when Mrs. Siddons
> (the famous English actress) stayed at Shane's and wrote of how
> she and her fellow-guests would pluck their dessert in the
> conservatory while the waves splashed outside and "the cool and
> pleasant wind came to murmur in concert" with the musicians
> playing in the adjoining corridor. In a storm, however, the
> wind and waves must have drowned all else, for it is recorded
> that the spray would beat into the very attics of the castle.
> Mrs Siddons was particularly impressed by the luxury of the
> O'Neills' establishment, comparing it to "an Arabian Nights
> entertainment". Rev. Daniel Beaufort, who came to Shane's 1787,
> was no less impressed, and described it as follows:
> "Drawing room adorned with magnificent mirrors, off breakfast
> room is rotunda coffee room, where in recesses are great
> quantities of china, a cistern with a cock and water, a boiler
> with another, all apparently for making breakfast; a letter
> box and round table with four sets of pen and ink let in for
> everybody to write. Conservatory joins house, fine apartment
> along lough, at end alcove for meals, from it a way to h & c
> bathing apartments with painted windows. On other side of
> house, pretty and large theatre and magnificent ballroom
> 60 X 30, all of wood and canvas painted, and so sent ready made
> from London".
>
> At the beginning of C19, 1st (and last) Earl O'Neill commissioned
> John Nash to enlarge Shane's in the castle style. Work began
> 1815 and in that year a very much larger lakeside terrace and
> conservatory were built; the terrace broad and battlemented,
> with a watch-tower at one end and a look-out at the other;
> the conservatory also battlemented, but with round-headed
> windows. But in 1816, when the walls of Nash's main addition
> were only just showing above the ground, the castle was burnt
> down; allegedly by the family banshee, which was annoyed at
> having its room invaded during a particularly large house-
> party. After the fire, all work was abandoned, and the
> family retreated to the fine 3 sided Georgian stable court,
> which stands a little further back from the shore of the lake;
> the center range below the cupola being remodelled, with
> Wyatt windows.
>
> In the 1860's, a new castle was built at one corner of the
> stables by 1st Lord O'Neill of the present creation, to the
> design of Sir Charles Lanyon and William Henry Lynn; not
> Scottish-Baronial, like most of Lynn's other castles, but
> plain gabled High Victorian, with a square tower at one
> end; the tower and its curret had straight parapets, with
> no battlements. Lynn added a billiard room to the castle
> for 2nd Lord O'Neill 1901. In 1922, the Victorian castle
> was burnt; its ruin was subsequently cleared away and for
> the next 40 years or so the family lived once again in the
> stables. Then a new house was built for the present
> Lord O'Neill at the opposite corner of the stables to
> where the Victorian castle had stood; it is in the Classical
> style, and has well-proportioned elevations, each with a
> recessed centre; and a handsome fanlighted doorway. Nash's
> conservatory by the ruins of the old castle is maintained
> as a camellia house, and the great castellated terrace
> remains as the most spectacular feature of the grounds,
> with a formidable battery of C18 cannon pointing across
> the water.
> There is an illustration of Shane's Castle as it was in
> the year 1780; and also a photograph of the ruins of the
> castle, the Orangery, Terrace and Battery probably taken
> in 1970's.
> I hope this answers your question.
> Anne Cropley, Sydney, Australia.
> ================================================>
>

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