{"id":189983,"date":"2025-11-20T02:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/189983\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:21:12","slug":"state-acquires-lands-around-castletown-house-in-co-kildare-for-e11-25m-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/189983\/","title":{"rendered":"State acquires lands around Castletown House in Co Kildare for \u20ac11.25m \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Office of Public Works (OPW)<\/a> has acquired lands around Castletown House in Celbridge, Co Kildare<\/a>, on behalf of the State following a two-year standoff that led to the closure of public parking and access at the heritage site. <\/p>\n

Minister of State for the OPW, Kevin \u201cBoxer\u201d Moran<\/a>, confirmed the purchase on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The OPW has purchased some 235 acres of historic estate lands at the estate for \u20ac11.25 million, including an entrance to the estate off the M4, and a public car park which has been closed since 2023.<\/p>\n

The OPW acquired Castletown House in 1994 and over the past 30 years has managed to reclaim about 227 acres of the historic grounds in increments.<\/p>\n

In September 2023, following the private sale of nearby land, an entrance and car park near the M4 was closed to the public and OPW staff.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Castletown House campaigners being sued by companies in row over gates and fencing \u2018blocking\u2019 key access routeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

New access routes were proposed by the OPW near Celbridge village, but some locals objected and kept up a presence at the gates.<\/p>\n

This led to most OPW staff not accessing the 250-acre site <\/a>and the grounds not being fully maintained for almost 18 months, until a deal to allow some access to service vehicles was reached in May of this year.<\/p>\n

Property and vehicles belonging to the OPW were badly damaged at a site used for Castletown House workers earlier this year. <\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters gather outside Leinster House in February to lobby TDs and Minister of State for the OPW Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran to intervene over what they say is denial of access to Castletown House parklands. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins <\/p>\n

The OPW said on Wednesday it was committed to restoring access to the estate via the M4 access as soon as possible. In the coming week it \u201cwill assess what remedial works, if any, are required in order to facilitate this\u201d. <\/p>\n

Further details on a reopening of this access will be provided in due course, it said. <\/p>\n

Mr Moran said he wanted to thank OPW staff who work at Castletown for \u201ctheir dedication and resilience over the last couple of years\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Castletown House: Vandals cause more than \u20ac500,000 of damage amid dispute over right-of-way accessOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to continuing to work with the local elected representatives, Kildare County Council and the local community in the weeks and months ahead,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

John Conlon, chairman of the OPW, said: \u201cIt has been a long-term policy objective of the OPW to reunite the historic lands at Castletown, and despite previous unsuccessful attempts to purchase these lands, we have now delivered an excellent long-term outcome for the State. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefits will accrue to the local community and visitors to the area for generations to come. I look forward to the OPW re-establishing Castletown House and Estate as a premier heritage attraction to be enjoyed by the people of north Kildare, as well as national and international visitors in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Irish Georgian Society said it welcomed the purchase. \u201cThis acquisition finally safeguards the setting of Ireland\u2019s greatest and most architecturally significant eighteenth-century country house and completes a task embarked on by Desmond Guinness when he bought the house in 1967,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Office of Public Works (OPW) has acquired lands around Castletown House in Celbridge, Co Kildare, on behalf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,106156,3625,11,12,15,16,5,105969,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-189983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-kevin-boxer-moran","17":"tag-kildare","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-office-of-public-works","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115579642926074595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}