Dysart Castle
County Kilkenny

Documenting our Heritage

Dysart Castle dates from the fourteenth century. Its name originates from the Irish 'Diseart' meaning a secluded place. The Speckled Book, written in 1418, one of the oldest vellum Irish manuscripts in existence, records Dysart as a site occupied by monks. Apparently the monks were tired of eating salmon because it was so abundant in the nearby river Nore. The stone salmon trap found on the river bend, though centuries old, is one of the few in Ireland still capable of being put to use.

After Henry VIII's Suppression of the Monasteries, in the year 1541, the castle came into the hands of the Butlers of Ormonde. The Butlers leased the castle to a number of occupiers.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century it was leased to the Berkeley family. George Berkeley was born on the 12th March 1685 and was raised at Dysart Castle. He went on to enter Kilkenny College in 1696, Trinity College in 1700 and later became known as one of the greatest philosophers of the early modern period. His numerous publications include Miscellanea Mathematica (1707) and An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709). The city of Berkeley, California and Berkeley University are named after him.

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