Hidden Gems of Ireland: Tullynally Castle, Co. Westmeath.

The Road Less Travelled...

In the last decade, there's been a definite push to attract visitors to the Irish midlands and let people know that Ireland is more than just its coastline. Having moved to the northern midlands, I can attest that this overlooked area has a myriad of magical spots to enjoy. If you plan a trip to Ireland, try to spend some time in the quieter areas - you will be well rewarded for your effort, and there's so much to see and do almost everywhere you look.

A Happy Discovery

One of my new favourite places, about half an hour from home, is Tullynally Castle, otherwise known as Pakenham Hall.

This Gothic-lite, sprawling country house is the largest of its ilk still in use as a family home in Ireland today. It has housed ten generations of the fascinating Pakenham family, the Earls of Longford: a glorious hotch-potch of Anglo-Irish soldiers, politicians, writers, and historians who have had their ancestral seat in county Westmeath since 1665.

You will find the main entrance gates to Tullynally about a mile outside the pretty village of Castlepollard. It's a popular destination for dog walkers and amblers who make good use of the winding and tree-lined driveway. This leads, in turn, to the much-modified main house - a sprawling edifice of one hundred and twenty rooms - and its enchanting gardens. There are occasional tours of small sections of the house - the main hall, the dining room with its secret door to one of the house's libraries, and the old kitchen and laundry on the day we went - but for most visitors, the gardens and tea room are the main draw.

A Wonderland For The Senses

Tullynally is best known for its gardens —almost thirty acres of delightfully pretty and carefully controlled semi-wildness. These date back to the 1740s originally but have been extensively remodelled over the centuries, most especially by the current earl and his late wife, Valerie. Thomas Pakenham, who chooses not to use his title, has embarked on trips to China, Tibet, and northern India, finding rare and wonderful trees and plants to enrich the naturalistic landscapes so that, apparently, in May and June, you can see Blue Himalayan poppies in Westmeath! I must admit we saw no sign of them when we visited, but there are plenty of other unexpected wonders to be found...

The gardens are designed for the dawdler, the stroller, who is apt to take the time to observe the composition and its elements in turn. Informal and romantic (in both the modern and classical sense), they invite the visitor to linger. From the overgrown charm of the lake to the summerhouses and wooden sculptures that are dotted around, to the fact that streams have been diverted from their natural course in service to the vision of the current earl, they are evidence of an imagination that has created its own fairy tale realm.

The Gingerbread House was built as a playhouse for the current crop of Pakenham grandchildren - now that really is a magical childhood, don't you think?

Tullynally And The Children of Lir

There is more, though, than carefully nurtured gardens. This rather oddly named estate is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Tulaigh an Eallaigh (pronounced tooley un ay-ley), which means the Hill of the Swan. The hill in question looks out over Lough Derravaragh - the lake where the Children of Lir were turned into swans in Irish mythology. When walking on the garden terrace, you can just about crane your head enough to see the lough, but I'm sure it would be clearer from one of the castle's turrets.

The Castle

The formidable and elegant Big House we see now dates from the 19th century. The original house was built in the 1700s and was a square two-stored home. When the title was bestowed upon the first Baron and his wife was made Countess of Longford, their accumulating funds allowed them to add another storey to the house. Their gardens, which were formal and orderly, with long rectangular ponds and fountains to the south of the house, were restyled to fit in with the fashion for more natural landscapes.

When their grandson, the second Earl of Longford, inherited the house, he decided it was outdated and needed modernising. He wanted the building to look like a gothic castle with suitable gravitas. To that end, in 1806, he employed the architect Francis Johnston, best known as the builder of the GPO in Dublin's O'Connell Street, to give his home a makeover. The result described by the Tullynally website says, "In this case, the gothic was a light fancy dress leaving Georgian proportions and windows as they were."

This was insufficient for the earl, so he brought back Johnston's student, James Sheil, in 1820 with instructions to improve the property. This is, largely, the house that we see today. While we were asked not to take photographs when we visited in May, there are some wonderful pictures of the castle's interior and portraits of its prior inhabitants on the IrishHistoricHouses.com website.

Nowadays, the Great Hall - which is great, but not in the sense of its size - is used as a venue for concerts several times a year. How many families can say they have an organ in their main entrance hall? Not many, I'm sure, but the astonishing acoustics in the hall mean that it's a great spot for music recitals.

The Pakenham Family at Tullynally

While the castle and its gardens are magnificent, the family is the real interest for many visitors. Ten generations of one family is a lot to cover, but let's look at the highlights, shall we?

The original Pakenham who was ennobled was, in fact, a woman—Elizabeth Pakenham (née Cuffe), who married Thomas Pakenham in 1740. (There are many men named Thomas in this family, so pay close attention!) Her family could trace back to the first iteration of the title Earl of Longford, which died out in 1706.

Elizabeth was created Countess of Longford in the Irish Peerage in 1785, while her husband had been made Baron Longford in 1756. Technically, this meant that Elizabeth outranked her husband, and when Thomas predeceased her by thirty years, only his title was passed to their son, Edward. Their grandson - also called Thomas, I really wasn't kidding when I said there were a lot of them! - united the titles when he inherited his grandmother's rank following her death in 1794 and became the second Earl of Longford.

Kitty, (the second) Thomas's sister, was married to Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington, who was born in Dublin in 1769. When the proposal was made in 1793, Thomas opposed the match as Arthur was a younger son with no real prospects other than the army; furthermore, he was known to have fallen into debt due to gambling. Apparently, Wellesley was distraught and destroyed his violin in a rage. Having well and truly proven himself, however, the two eventually married in 1806, but by all accounts, it was a largely unsuccessful marriage and they spent most of their time apart.

The Middle Generations

The third earl was named Edward, the fourth named William, and the fifth was named...can you guess? That's right - Thomas!

The sixth was Edward, a fervent Irish Nationalist, often best known for his involvement with The Gate Theatre in Dublin. He and his wife, Christine, were passionate about the arts and were able to support the theatre financially when it ran into difficulties a few years after its formation. In fact, there's a lovely little cartoon drawing of him shaking a collection can in the Great Hall of Tullynally. If you follow the link above, you will see the image that inspired the cartoon. Although his family seem to have been quite confused by his obsessions, one of Ireland's greatest theatres might not still be here today if it hadn't been for his investment.

Frank and Elizabeth Longford

When we get to the seventh earl and his countess, things become very interesting indeed!

Francis Aungier Pakenham, known as Frank Pakenham or Lord Longford, was the younger brother of the sixth earl. He was one of the longest-serving politicians of the British Labour Party, holding cabinet posts intermittently between 1947 and 1968, and remained politically active until he died in 2001. He was a known champion of prison reform in the United Kingdom and visited prisoners from the 1930s until 2001. Although he was at odds with the Labour leadership on more than one occasion, it is generally acknowledged that his deep Christian faith and conscience held him to a high standard of behaviour. Following the maxim of 'love the sinner but hate the sin' encouraged him to visit convicts around the British Isles without fanfare and campaigned for appropriate rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

Elizabeth Longford (née Harman), as she was known, was also an intriguing character. The child of two doctors, she grew up in London's Harley Street and lived in a world where a burgeoning equality between the sexes was becoming visible. She met her husband at Oxford, where she was friends with some of the most important names in art and politics in the 20th century. The Longfords married in 1931 despite being aligned with two wholly opposite political viewpoints. (He was originally a Conservative while she was a proud member of the Labour Party - somehow, they are said to have had a very happy and harmonious marriage, possibly because Frank joined her on her side of the political fence!). The couple had eight children, among them the well-respected writers Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington, and Judith Kazantzis. Elizabeth took up writing in her mid-fifties, becoming quite prolific in her output; she published her own memoirs at the age of 80. Among her other famous relatives are her niece Harriett Harman - a prominent British Labour Party MP for over forty years, and first cousin once removed, Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940.

The Current Thomas Pakenham

Among their talented family, Frank and Elizabeth's eldest son, Thomas, has maintained the standard. A committed traveller and arborist, his long love affair with trees has seen him visit some far-flung locations to bring back specimens, not to mention writing about them in a number of acclaimed books. The best-known of these is Meetings With Remarkable Trees, which was made into a TV series (some parts of which can still be found on Youtube) and recorded as an audiobook. Not content with that, he also wrote about African history and the Boer War, the Irish rebellion of 1798, and co-authored several books with his wife, Valerie. All of his books appear when you search for him on Amazon.

At the age of ninety, he is still to be found in the gardens at Tullynally. While digging around, I found a lovely video from Irish Aesthete on YouTube: Robert O'Byrne and Thomas discussing the house and its history.

As a bonus, there is a whole episode about the main library that I was privileged to visit in May this year. It is the most wonderful space, and begs nothing more than clambering into a window seat to spend the afternoon with a pile of those beautiful books and a large pot of tea - kept at a respectful distance, of course!

What Are Your Favourite Irish Hidden Gems?

I am fortunate to live in a beautiful area with much to discover. Despite being a small country, Ireland has so much to offer, and we always want to know more. If you have visited Ireland, what were your most underrated locations? Where would you recommend? We'd love to hear from you in the comments section or by email!