Qualla: Howth Castle

Howth Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC BY 4.0. In 1576 the pirate queen Grainne O'Malley sailed her ship into Howth harbour, walked up to the gates of Howth Castle and asked for hospitality. She was turned away - the Earl was at dinner, the gates were closed, the customary rules of Irish welcome had been forgotten. So she sailed back to her ship with the Earl's grandson and heir, whom she had quietly abducted on the way out. The ransom she set was not gold. It was a promise that the gates of Howth Castle would never again be closed at mealtimes, and that an extra place at dinner would always be set for an unexpected guest. The St Lawrence family kept that promise for the next four hundred and forty-three years.

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Image: Zairon | CC BY 4.0

Howth Castle: Eight Centuries Above the Bay

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lkcl it, CC BY-SA 3.0. The St Lawrence family arrived in 1177 with the Norman invasion - Almeric Tristram, the first Lord of Howth, came across with John de Courcy and was granted the peninsula after a battle near the Baily lighthouse. The first castle was a wooden structure on Tower Hill, overlooking ...

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Image: Lkcl it | CC BY-SA 3.0

Howth Castle: Lutyens and the Library

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zenit, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1911 Edwin Lutyens - the architect who would soon design the Cenotaph in London and the Viceroy's House in New Delhi - was brought in to restyle the medieval castle. Lutyens kept the bones and reworked the surfaces, creating among other things a library that became one of the ...

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Image: Zenit | CC BY-SA 3.0

Howth Castle: Rhododendrons and Beech Hedges

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Tournesol assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The grounds outside the castle have always been the point as much as the building itself. The rhododendron walks, wild and overgrown, climb the slopes above the castle and bloom each summer in extraordinary mass colour. Some of the oldest beech hedges in Ireland, planted in 1710,...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Tournesol assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Howth Castle: Howth Castle and Environs

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC BY 4.0. James Joyce begins and ends Finnegans Wake at "Howth Castle and Environs" - the initials HCE, which appear throughout the novel and form the name of its main character Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, are Joyce's private monument to the castle and the peninsula. Joyce sprinkled more ...

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Image: Zairon | CC BY 4.0

Howth Castle: Racecourse and Restoration

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shinae Hyun, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1829 the third Earl of Howth, Thomas St Lawrence, who was particularly mad for horses, established a racecourse in the castle grounds. Howth Park Racecourse ran from the back gate lodge on Carrickbrack Road, down past what is now Santa Sabina school, around Corr Castle and bac...

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Image: Shinae Hyun | CC BY-SA 4.0