02/07/2012 – Here-There-Everywhere

2 Jul 2012 – Good Friends Are Never A Folly!

Fri: interesting historical tour and lunched (delicious soup) at Castletown House***Celbridge Co Kildare. This Palladian country house built in 1722 for William Conolly, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, forms the centrepiece of a 550-acre/2.2 km2 estate. Sold to developers in 1965, the estate is now divided between State and private ownership.

Baois Uí Chongaile/Conolly’s Folly, a.k.a. The Obelisk or originally The Conolly Folly, is an obelisk structure located near Celbridge and Maynooth within Castletown Estate (containing Castletown House), which contains two follies, both commissioned by Katherine Conolly, the philanthropic widow of Speaker William Conolly to provide employment for hundreds of the poor of Celbridge when the famine of 1740-41 was at its worst.

The Obelisk was built in 1740 after a particularly severe winter. As a folly, it could be seen from the back of Castletown some 2.5mi/4 km away.

Following two centuries of internationally renowned scholarly activity on the Maynooth campus the National University of Ireland,/NUI, Maynooth was established under the 1997 Universities Act as an autonomous member of the federal structure known as the National University of Ireland.

With an amazing chapel and Garden of Eden, this would be the place to tempt me to be a student again 🙂

Sat: Cill Chluain/Kilcloon=Church of the meadow. There is a post office, parish church, a national school, a school for autistic children and a branch of the Irish Credit Union in the back-country roads here.

Mick & Ann’s Inis Fennel is one of the houses in Brownstown parish. More parishes within the Kilcloon bigger area and all the parishes make up of app 600+houses.

Interesting gravestones and chasing the moon on this windy chilly night. The patron of the parish church is Oliver Plunkett, bishop and martyr, and was the first church dedicated to his memory.