Documenting our Heritage

Castle Oliver,

Co. Limerick.

Page 2

Declan brings me through to the dining room, we sit down for some tea and scones.

Apparently the night before members of the heavy metal band Saxon were running down the table here! ‘Glasses went flying’!

However the band headed off in their tour bus that morning and calm has been restored.

I start to get a feeling for the huge amount of work that’s been undertaken to bring the castle up to it’s current state.

A section of the battlements had fallen from the roof, crashed through all floors and smashed down where the table is now located.

Looking up at the ceiling and around the room, everything now appears just as the Oliver-Gascoigne sisters intended.

Declan flicks a hidden switch and the oil painting canvas starts to roll up, revealing a hidden plasma screen! amazing!

Here we see a portrait of the ‘Black Lady’

According to legend she still haunts the castle stairs.

The portrait was found left in the castle and badly damaged.

On restoration it was identified as a notable work of a fine artist.

The stairs were completely missing and just a few panes of the stain-glass left hanging in the frame. All this has been totally restored. Each single pain of reconstructed stain-glass represents around 200 hours of work by a craftsman.