Hollywood actor puts Offaly castle on the market for just under €1 million
‘He added that the ghost of one of the O'Carrolls still walks the upstairs rooms from time to time’
THE Hollywood actor Patrick Bergin has put his castle in southern Offaly on the market at a price tag of €995,000.
Emmel Castle is a wonderful complex of 15th and 17th century buildings near the villages of Cloughjordan and Moneygall and has been lived in by Bergin since 1991. The complex includes a 15th-century Tower House and a graceful 17th-Century Country House. Emmel was built by the O'Carrolls in the mid-15th century in the historic territory of Ely O'Carroll, and was one of 25 castles in their possession. The elegant country house section was added to the medieval tower house in 1683 by "Long Anthony" O'Carroll.
Bergin has acted in many films over a long career and his most famous role was the sinister husband in “Sleeping with the Enemy”, which came out the same year as he bought Emmel.
Emmel Castle is one of the most striking structures in the southern Offaly landscape. It is a cohesive mix of historic styles, incorporating the tower house and the late seventeenth-century house, with nineteenth-century alterations. The continued use of these structures has prevented dereliction and a potential loss of fabric. It's set on 20 acres and there are a number of outbuildings with slate roofs. There is also a courtyard, a bellcote and a walled garden.
Patrick says he and his wife Helen Goldin are leaving the castle with great regret as it has been a wonderful and much-loved home for them for many years. However, age has caught up with them and there's a pressing need to live somewhere which is more suitable for their age bracket. “We are not getting younger,” Helen said. “We would like to be able to walk to a shop. Everything is a drive here. The nearest restaurant is in Nenagh. We have been very happy here, but it needs young people.”
This journalist has visited the Castle on a number of occasions, the most recent being in November 2022 during an Offaly Heritage Seminar. The attendees of the seminar were glad to see that extensive repair works were being carried out at the time on the castle. The repair works were being supported by the Community Monuments Fund, a programme from the National Monuments Service.
During the Seminar we were very fortunate to get a tour of this elegant and fascinating complex of buildings by Patrick and Helen themselves. Patrick told us about his film company 'Amergin' and a DVD it had produced which was three short films based on adaptations of three Yeats plays. He gave us a copy of it as a present. (I rate Yeats plays very highly, so this was a big treat for me). Local man Seamus Costello was also present to tell us some of the history and point out the various features of a place which is one of Offaly's heritage gems. Rachel McKenna, Conservation Architect Offaly County Council, told us that a lot of vital restoration work had been carried out on the castle since 2020. Seamus told us a terrible battle was fought nearby called The Battle of the Bloody Togher. He said Templeharry Church, where the link with Barack Obama was identified, was nearby. We were also told that when Emmel was an O'Carroll castle there were many skirmishes between the O'Carrolls and the neighbouring O'Kennedy clan.
The 15th Tower House remains in excellent condition. The Stoney family moved in in the early 18th Century. Seamus said the Stoney family "went broke feeding people during the Famine." You can see where the entrance to the old tower house once stood, guarded by a couple of holes through which the inhabitants could fire missiles at attackers. Unusually, the narrow winding stair ascending up the tower house is not stone, but oak. This perhaps dates from the 1600s and it's believed that it's the only one of its kind in Ireland.
Patrick told us that an eccentric master of the local foxhunt lived here in the 1960s and '70s, called Dalgety. The hounds were kept in the outhouses. Dalgety said that when he died he wanted his body to be cremated and fed to the hounds. At the time cremation was not allowed in Ireland. Therefore he was cremated in England, the ashes were brought back, mixed with the hound food and fed to the pack. Patrick pointed at a bugle hanging on the wall and said it was one of Dalgety's hunting horns. He said a hunting horn can be heard blowing in the area every halloween and it's a mystery who is blowing it. He added that the ghost of one of the O'Carrolls still walks the upstairs rooms from time to time.
Emmel Castle, which extends to 663sq m (7,136 ft) and is Ber exempt, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald, guiding €995,000.