Private Tour and Lunch with the Owners of Birr Castle

Private Tour and Lunch with the Owners of Birr Castle

Dates offered: Wednesday, July 22; Thursday, July 23; and Friday, July 24
Deadline to book: March 1
Cost:
– Minimum cost for groups of 12 or less: €3,600.
– Each additional person above 12 and up to a total of 20: €175/person.
– Each additional person above 20 and up to a total of 40: €145/person
– There are no child rates available.
Capacity: One group per day; minimum of 12 people and absolute maximum of 40 people per day.

Birr Castle, the home of science in Ireland, is still the home of the family that originally built it and has lived there for some 14 generations. Now, 406 years after the Parsons family arrived in Birr, they welcome you to their castle home for a private lunch and walk down memory lane.

This is an activity for a cast or small group to have a truly unique experience with a personal tour of the castle and a private formal lunch. Think Downton Abbey mixed with history, science and floral wonders! You will also have access to all amenities on site. For a full description, please scroll to the bottom of the page.

Planned Itinerary (can be slightly adjusted for your group or by request of the Parsons family):

Includes private transfer to Birr town for your group (an hour and 10 minutes from campus).

9:30: Depart University of Limerick

10:40: Arrive and explore the picturesque heritage town developed around the Birr Castle estate of the Parsons family, the Earls of Rosse.

12:00: Meet at the visitor center of the castle  to explore the Science Center and the diverse and charming gardens of the castle.

13:00: Guests are usually welcomed with a glass of sherry or sparkling wine in the tapestried hall, which provides an appropriate setting for a brief history of the castle and of the family. A family member then guides a tour of the libraries, yellow drawing room and great Gothic Music Saloon, pointing out the treasures in each room and their history. 

Lunch is served in the rich red dining room, where the last seven generations, who built up everything from the telescope to the gardens, look down from their formal portraits on the walls.

After lunch, a member of the family will take the group into the gardens to see the Great Telescope, as well as the galleries of Ireland’s Historic Science Centre, which is located at the castle’s old stable block.  They will also show the group as much of the Demesne’s beautiful gardens as time allows.* 

16:30: Depart

*The Demesne is very extensive and covers over 50 hectares (over 120 acres). It is difficult to do it justice in less than two or three hours.  Between the garden tour and the time needed for the reception and the lunch in the Castle, as well as the personal tour of its main rooms, a minimum of about five hours is needed for this event.

What to Bring:

Participants are advised to have comfortable walking shoes and to wear light layers! We suggest a sweater, rain jacket, jeans or pants and small backpack. Temperatures may vary with rain a possibility.

Disclaimer:

All parties participating in the tour and activities do so at the participant’s own sole risk. UWPIAA organisers of the tour are released from any claims, actions, damages, liabilities, losses, costs and expenses by participants in the tour, and all persons accept full responsibility for themselves during the tour.

Dining at Birr Castle
Under a massive early ormolu and cut-glass chandelier, the main castle dining table seats over 20 whilst a more intimate one in an alcove overlooking the forecourt seats a further eight or nine.

The tables are set with various family heirlooms, in silver, china or glass, all on family linen tablecloths. If the party is not too large, lunch ends with coffee served in cups specially commissioned to portray the castle nearly 200 years ago.

Lunch makes as much use as possible of the actual produce of the estate: the starter may be cress soup or artichoke hearts; the main course may be venison from the estate’s own red or fallow deer; the cheeses will be from local Irish farmhouses and the watercress usually served with them will have come straight from St. Brendan’s well, directly beneath the castle.  The meal will probably finish with a gateau or fool made from whichever fruit may be in season, for it is the seasons which have always ordained the menus at Birr.

The wine served may be red, white or very likely rosé in mid-summer. They may be the produce of a vineyard in either hemisphere, but will assuredly be of good vintage, having been personally selected from the depths of the castle cellars, where the wines mature as well in the same constant damp darkness as all put into the dungeons next door.

After lunch, the family portraits and furniture in the dining room may be pointed out, as well as the great staircase, which dates from the reign of Charles II and is made entirely of yew wood.

When special interests have been communicated in advance, the family are also happy to show from the castle’s many unique items. For example, the beautifully illustrated works from the botanical library, whose earliest works date back to the mid 16th century, or anything from the castle’s archives, where even the castle cookbook of the 1660s is still preserved.

History of Birr Castle and the Parsons Family
The Parsons family arrived at Birr in July of 1620 and acquired the ruined fortress of Birr. The 17th century was a turbulent one for the Parsons family in Birr. The castle was involved in two sieges: the first in the 1640s, when the family moved for a time to London. In 1690, the castle was besieged again, this time by Patrick Sarsfield. However, the castle held out, and Sarsfield moved on.

The 18th century was a quieter period for the family, who were left with little money and focused on improving their estate at Birr, living off the land.

The 19th century saw the castle become a great center of scientific research when William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, built the Great Telescope.

His wife, Mary, whose fortune helped him build the telescope and make many improvements to the castle, was a pioneering photographer and took many photographs in the 1850s.

Her darkroom, a veritable time capsule preserved in the castle, has now been relocated to the Science Centre.

Their son, Laurence, the 4th Earl, continued the astronomical work at the castle, and the Great Telescope was used until the beginning of World War II.

Laurence’s son, William, the 5th Earl, had a keen interest in agriculture and visited Denmark in search of more modern and successful farming methods. However, he died of wounds in World War I in his early 40s.

William’s son, Michael, the 6th Earl, and his wife, Anne, created the Formal Garden at Birr Castle Demesne. Anne, who was the sister of stage designer Oliver Messel, brought many treasures to Birr from the Messel collection.

Birr Castle Today
Unlike so many castles that today have been turned into commercial hotels, Birr Castle is still occupied by the original family, who have now been here for over 400 years. The 7th Earl and Countess of Rosse currently live in the Castle.

Birr Castle is surrounded by the Demesne, comprising award-winning gardens that are the only Irish Garden ranked in the top 15 in Europe. In this peaceful atmosphere, two rivers meet and run beneath the castle walls. The gardens contain rare plants and trees from all over the world, with over 5,000 different species from as far away as Chile and China.

The Great Birr Telescope, built in the 1840s by William the 3rd Earl, was the biggest in the world for over 70 years. The Science Centre in the old stable block reveals the wonders of the family’s inventions and achievements in photography, engineering, and astronomy as well as botany.

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