RATHFARNHAM     CASTLE                                                                                                          

By  Crea Rose

From 4th class

At school we went to Rathfarnham Castle for a school tour. And there was lots of great paintings.

But there was one particular artist who was suspected to when giving portraits of women would

ONLY PAINT THE HEAD AND FACE. And would get lots of other people to do the body and  the

Backround. And the thing  was he seemed to get away with it.But  if you go on the tour you cant

actualy see a lot of the furniture because when the first family who lived there when they moved

they took nearly all of their furniture with them .So whenever there is an auction for any furniture

they try to get it.They also have an amazing ballroom and there was a little door in there connecting

with another room where the ladys waited to be announced and then they came to the ballroom.

After all the familys moved out of Rathfarnham Castle to go somewhere else a group of preists came

and moved in but they had no use for a ballroom because preists don’t dance all that much but they

needed a place for prayer so they used it  for praying.They also had a fantastic GIGANTIC model of

Rathfarnham back in the olden days .Well I have to say out of all that I think it was a great school tour and I might go there again with my family.  

Our trip to Rathfarnham Castle          by Annie

Today, the twenty-ninth of November,2017,4^th class went on a trip to Ra              thfarnham Castle. Our guide’s name was Eoin. He told us loads of information on the castle. We went into the reception where we saw a fact-file on the wall. It had pictures of the inhabitants of the castle and of the building itself. Adam Loftus was the first owner of the castle; whom it was made for. He had a wife, Jane, and twenty children. We went into the ballroom, entrance hall and loads more. The story of the woman who died in the castle was staged in the ballroom. People said two men had a fight over her and locked her in a compartment in a hollow wall. The winner would rescue her. But both men died in the struggle and nobody knew she was in there. She was in there for 130 years. We saw rooms with extremely decorative ceilings. One or two ceilings were made with real gold. Henry Loftus had no children but he had a lovely wife. Henry redecorated the house in the 18^th century and Adam would not have recognized it. Henry had two nieces and a nephew. Charles, Henry’s nephew, inherited the castle from his uncle. The Blackburns moved in after the Loftus’s. They told the story of the woman at the dinner table. After the Blackburns a group of priests moved in and built extensions. When the government bought the castle they knocked down the extensions and tried to track down old Loftus furniture. They found some in auctions around England but they didn’t find much. They left some furniture that the priests had put in but it was just fireplaces. They tried to rebuild the Rathfarnham Castle as Henry Loftus would have recognized it. They have tried to repair the castle but left some rooms as they are to leave some evidence that Henry Loftus redecorated.     

Our day at Rathfarnham Castle      by Emil     in fourth class

Today at half nine fourth class left to get to Rathfarnham Castle we were allowed to choose our partners so I picked Alfie. When we got to Rathfarnham Castle our guide called Eoin told us a bit about the Loftus family. Adam Loftus built the Castle in 1538. He had twenty children. We were told by Eoin that the first room we were in was the kitchen. Where the cooks would cook the meals for the Loftus family with a fire. Then we walked into eight different rooms they are trying to find the original furniture because when the Loftus family sold the Castle to the Blackburn family they moved to Loftus hall in Wexford. And they took all of the furniture to Loftus hall but they later moved out of the paintings and furniture were sold at auction.