Lough Rynn Castle (Irish: Caisleán Loch na Reanna) is a luxury castle hotel on the shores of Lough Rynn in Gortletteragh County Leitrim, Ireland situated on the historic grounds of the medieval castle and estate of the Mac Raghnaill family of Muintir Eolais.
Location
Lough Rynn Castle and estate is located on an isthmus between the lakes of Lough Rynn and Lough Erril. It is some 4 km from Mohill, 145 km from Dublin City on the N4 and 155 km from Galway City. The nearest airport is at Knock, 99 km away.
History
Mac Raghnaill family ( –1621)
The current Lough Rynn estate is built on the ancestral lands of Clan Maelsechlainn-Oge Mac Raghnaill, the pre-Conquest rulers of this part of County Leitrim known as Muintir Eolais. The Annals of Loch Cé and Annals of Connacht refer to "the crannóg of Claenloch" (Lough Rynn) in the High Middle Ages, 1247AD, with the structure marked on some maps as "Crannoge" or "Crane Island", while the medieval Mac Raghnaill's Castle is mentioned in 1474AD. The ruins of the Mac Raghnaill's Castle are located close to the lake and some 500 metres from the existing Lough Rynn Castle. The historian, Fiona Slevin, describes the structure of the Mac Raghnaill castle as "fairly standard for the time, but it did have a few unusual - and clever - features. Although a square shape, the castle had rounded corners that made it more impervious to artillery attacks and it had a straight stairway carved into the hollow of a wall, rather than the more usual spiral stair in one corner."
The Mac Raghnaill family had played an important role in the Nine Years War on the side of Aodh Mór Ó Néill resisting the English conquest of Ireland.
Crofton family (1621–1750)
In the English Plantation of 1621, the Mac Raghnaill lands in Lough Rynn were confiscated and granted to an English family named Crofton. The Croftons brought British Protestant settlers with them and in the 1620s and 1630s the native Irish were gradually removed from the land.
Clements family (1750–1970s)
In 1750 the Croftons were replaced by another English family named the Clements. Daniel Clements, an officer in Oliver Cromwell's army, had been granted land in County Cavan which had been confiscated from the Irish following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. In 1750 Nathaniel Clements acquired the Lough Rynn estate, while remaining on his lands in Cavan. Nevertheless, the Clements started to become more involved in political life in Leitrim with Robert Clements becoming sheriff for the county in 1759. In 1795 Robert Clements became the first Earl of Leitrim. In 1833, Robert Bermingham, Viscount Clements, built a mock Tudor revival house overlooking Lough Rynn. It is this property which is the basis for the current Lough Rynn Castle.
William Sydney Clements, 3rd Earl of Leitrim
Upon Robert's death in 1839, management of Lough Rynn estate passed to his brother, William Sydney Clements. In 1854, when their father Nathaniel Clements, 2nd Earl of Leitrim, died William Sydney Clements became the 3rd Earl of Leitrim. He inherited an estate of a massive 90,000 acres which stretched across four counties. From around this time Sydney Clements asserted his control over the estate in an authoritarian manner which won him many opponents among the tenantry. The inability of tenants to pay rent during and after An Gorta Mór provided him with an opportunity to clear his estate and introduce more productive farming practices. The change in attitude towards tenants by this new Lord Leitrim is seen four years after he assumed his father's title. In 1858, in a nationally reported event, Clements assembled one thousand armed military and police to repossess the local Gortletteragh Church for non-payment of rent, rent which his liberally-minded father had refused to take. However, some six thousand men turned up from Longford, Westmeath, Roscommon and across Leitrim on the day to defend the church, forcing Clements to back down. The Nation noted at this time that Lord Leitrim was `already famous for such proceedings towards his tenantry as not many even of his own order dare imitate'. By 1860 Sydney Clements had firmly abandoned the liberal cause which his brother and father had supported and had become a staunch supporter of the Conservatives. He became more reactionary against the many calls for land reform which dominated post-Famine Ireland. In 1870 he spoke out vehemently against William Gladstone's first Irish Land Act, believing it to be an encroachment on the rights of property owners.