Birr Castle Demesne and other Birr, Ireland Things to Do Tips

Most tourists coming to Birr end up visiting this place. While the gothic looking Castle itself is still home to the Earl of Rosse and his family and out of bounds to visitors, the massive park grounds, including sights such as the Leviathon telescope, originally built in 1840's by the Third Earl of Ross and the Science Centre. Surrounding the castle is a hexagonal moat, constructed in the 1870's as a famine relief work - that is, rather than 'creating a culture of dependence', the able bodied were required to build follies such as this in order that they could be paid for actually doing something...

The gardens are rather special, with trees imported as seeds over the generations from places as far apart as the States and China. Beautiful parkland, including lake, river and waterfall. Correspondence between the 5th Earl and various botanists around the world are contained in the museum and act to make show the garden in a more personal light.

The museum itself I actually found a bit dull. There's a lot of text in there but you seem to learn very little about the history of the site itself ot the family that live there, apart from the letters mentioned above.

Opening hours:
March to October 09.00 - 18.00
November to February 10.00 to 16.00

Entrance fee:
Adult - 9.00 euro
Student/Senior - 7.00 euro
Child - 5.00

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Address: Castle Street, Birr, Co. Offaly
Website: www.birrcastle.com
Other Contact: mail@birrcastle.com

In the grounds of the castle you'll find the reconstructed Leviathon, the massive telecope originally designed and built by the Third Earl of Rosse in the 1840's. Many of the findings from research carried out using the telescope were published and the telescope became fairly famous internationally. After 1908 and the death of the 4th Earl, the telescope fell into disrepair until the late 1990's when reconstruction began.

While the body of the telescope and it's massive holding station have been refitted, problems have still been encountered in modernising the telescope - it's proving difficult to synchronise the massive telescope with modern computerised technology.

The history of the telescope and the contribution of the Earls of Rosse and their talented wives to both astronomy and photography are documented in the on site museum.

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Address: Castle Street, Birr, Co. Offaly.
Website: http://www.birrcastle.com/
Other Contact: mail@birrcastle.com