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| Lismore Castle -This noble pile, situated near the town of the same name, in the county of Waterford, on the far-famed "Avondhu," - now called the Munster Blackwater - of the poet Spenser, is perhaps the stateliest baronial residence in Ireland. The original structure was founded on the site of an ancient Irish university by King John, when he was titular Lord of Ireland, in 1185, and since that period has undergone numerous reconstructions, having endured "the battles, sieges and fortunes" of frequent rebellions. It rises proudly in the midst of the most enchanting scenery of its type in the island-on the verdant, forest-clad banks of the noble river that has been truly named "the Irish Rhine." Its most striking architectural features are King John's Tower, to the rearward of the main structure; King James' Tower-so called because James II rested there before his hasty flight from Ireland in 1690-which faces the river; and the Carlisle Tower, of modern design, named after a recent Whig Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Castle was once the property of Sir Walter Raleigh, of Elizabethan fame, who sold it to Boyle, Earl of Cork. This nobleman restored and renovated the somewhat battered Castle. Robert Boyle, the great philosopher, was born there in 1627. The place eventually passed, by marriage, into the possession of the Cavendish family, and it has long been the Irish residence of the Dukes of Devonshire. The English translation of the name Lismore is "Great Fort." |
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