Malahide

During our visit to Dublin we wanted to see Malahide Castle and we took an organized tour by bus.
The tour lasted about three hours and I must admit that I enjoyed every moment while we were passing and watching beautiful Irish countryside. We were delighted by castle as well. The only complaint to this trip is that it should last much longer. Now I have a reason to come back again!

 Here's a little about history of Malahide Castle

Malahide Castle is one of the oldest and most historic castles in Ireland. From 1185 until 1975, it was the home of the Talbot family. This was a remarkable tenure by a single family and is one of the longest in Ireland.
In 1169, at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion, Malahide was under the control of Hammund Mac Turkill, the last Viking King of Dublin.
The estate began in 1185, when Richard Talbot, a knight who accompanied England’s King, Henry II to Ireland in 1174, was granted the "lands and harbour of Malahide".

The oldest parts of the castle date back to the 12th century and it was home to the Talbot family for 791 years, the only exception being the period from 1649-1660, when Oliver Cromwell granted it to Miles Corbet after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland; Corbet was hanged following the demise of Cromwell, and the castle was restored to the Talbots.
The building was notably enlarged in the reign of England’s King, Edward IV, and the towers were added in 1765.
The estate survived such losses as the Battle of the Boyne, when fourteen members of the owner's family sat down to breakfast in the Great Hall, and all were dead by evening, and the Penal Laws, even though the family remained Roman Catholic until 1774.

In the 1920s the private papers of James Boswell were discovered in the castle, and sold to American collector Ralph H. Isham by Boswell's great-great-grandson Lord Talbot of Malahide.
Malahide Castle was eventually inherited by the seventh Baron, Lord Milo Talbot and on his death in 1973, passed to his sister, Rose. In 1975, Rose sold the castle to the Irish State, partly to fund inheritance taxes.
The house is furnished with beautiful period furniture together with an extensive collection of Irish portrait paintings, mainly from the National Gallery.