Kylemore Abbey

Mitchell Henry, a London surgeon and MP whose family money came from Manchester textiles, built Kylemore between 1867 and 1871 for his wife Margaret after they honeymooned in Connemara. She died of dysentery in Egypt in 1874, aged forty-five, and he built the neo-Gothic church in the grounds as a memorial - a scaled miniature cathedral with columns of Irish marble from four provinces. Both are buried in the mausoleum nearby. The estate later passed to the Duke of Manchester, who gambled it away, and in 1920 to Benedictine nuns fleeing Ypres, who ran an international boarding school here until 2010; the community remains. The six-acre Victorian walled garden, one of the last built in Ireland, was restored from dereliction in the 1990s and is planted only with varieties documented before 1901. The lakeside setting is what most photographs show and is genuinely as good as they suggest.

History

Kylemore Castle was built from 1867 as a private home for Mitchell Henry, a wealthy doctor from London whose family made textiles in Manchester, to a design by James Franklin Fuller; it took a hundred men four years and had over seventy rooms. Benedictine nuns founded the abbey in its grounds in 1920 (Wikipedia, Kylemore Abbey).

What you'll find

• The castle - Victorian neo-Gothic, reflected in the lake below.
• The Gothic church - a miniature cathedral built as a memorial to Margaret Henry.
• The walled garden - six acres, restored, planted only with pre-1901 varieties.
• The Benedictine community - here since 1920, after leaving Ypres.

When to go

April to October for the garden, which is the strongest reason to come; it is at its best from June. The site is open year-round with reduced winter hours and can be very busy in summer.

Practical notes

Only a few rooms of the castle are shown - it is not a full house tour. The walled garden is a shuttle ride or a long walk from the castle. Ticketed and among the more expensive sites in the west. Coach traffic is heavy in summer.

Nearby

Connemara National Park is at Letterfrack; Killary Harbour is north.

Key facts