Kylemore Abbey & Walled Gardens (continued)

KYLEMORE ABBEY & WALLED GARDENS –  The no. 1 attraction in the West of Ireland

Situated at the foot of Doughruagh (Dúchruach) Mountain, near Letterfrack, Kylemore Abbey was originally built as a castle by Mitchell Henry, son of a wealthy Manchester cotton merchant. Henry inherited a vast income from the family business, A & S Henry and Co, and left his career as a prominent surgeon to become a Liberal politician. He served as MP for County Galway from 1871 to 1885. Henry and his wife, Margaret, were married in the 1840s and spent their honeymoon in Connemara, where they fell in love with the spectacular landscape. In 1862, Henry bought the Kylemore estate and employed architects James Franklin Fuller and Ussher Roberts to design what is now known as Kylemore Abbey. Building began in 1867 and the castle was completed four years later. In addition to the castle with over 70 rooms, the estate comprised 13,000 acres, with pleasure gardens and kitchen gardens taking up about 8 acres. Tropical fruit such as bananas, oranges and pineapples, along with grapes, peaches and other items were raised in the heated greenhouses. Most of the estate consisted of bogland, lakes and mountainside, much of which Mitchell Henry turned into productive arable land.

This gave employment to many locals, many of whom benefitted from other projects undertaken by Henry, such as housing and a school for the children of his workers. After nearly 40 years in Connemara, having lost his wife in 1875 as the result of an illness contracted during a visit to Egypt, and having spent most of his fortune – much of it on his efforts to drain the Connemara bogland – Henry sold Kylemore to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester in 1903. The duchess was the daughter of wealthy American businessman, Eugene Zimmerman, who help to fund the extravagant lifestyle of the duke and duchess.

Zimmerman died only a few years later, and with the property heavily mortgaged, Kylemore was taken over by a London banker, Ernest Fawke, until a buyer was found for the property seven years later.