Читать книгу Irish Castles - Orna Mulcahy - Страница 24

RECESS, CONNEMARA, COUNTY GALWAY

+353 95 31006 | www.ballynahinch-castle.com

Surrounded by woodlands in the heart of Connemara with a backdrop of the Twelve Bens mountains, Ballynahinch Castle was built in the eighteenth century by the powerful Martin family, who produced Humanity Dick Martin, an MP so named for his championing of animal rights, but also known as Hair-Trigger Dick for the several people he killed or wounded in duels.

The castle is set on the banks of the Owenmore river, renowned for its fly fishing, and it was this that attracted the Indian prince and cricketer Ranjitsinhji (“Ranji”), who fell for its romantic setting in the 1920s. He renovated the castle and built fishing huts and piers along the river, and he lived at Ballynahinch until his death in 1933. The castle has been run as an up-market hotel since 1946 and has recently been entirely refurbished by its current owner, the businessman Denis O’Brien.