Mitchelstown Castle - 20th Century

20th Century

In June 1922, the castle was occupied by the Irish Republican Army. The then owner, William Downes Webber (second husband of Anna, Dowager Countess of Kingston), his relatives and servants were 'evicted' to houses in nearby King Square. Over the next few weeks the castle was held by the Republicans who appeared to be preparing it for some kind of siege. However, in early August, the contents of the building were taken by the Republicans. Among the items taken were paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, William Beechey and Conrod, as well as silver, furniture, wall hangings, and mantlepieces. On 12 August 1922, Mitchelstown Castle was burned on the orders of a local Republican leader whose father and grandfather had been middlemen on the Kingston estate. At the same time, the military barracks at Fermoy, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Kilworth were burned, as well as the military hospital in Fermoy, Mitchelstown workhouse, Mitchelstown RIC barracks and the railway viaduct in Mallow.

Afterwards, William Downes Webber sought compensation from the Irish Free State totalling £149,000 for rebuilding and £18,000 for contents. He intended to rebuild if sufficient compensation was provided. After his death in 1924, Colonel W.A. King-Harman pursued the claim in the Irish courts. Judge Kenny, in the Irish High Court in 1926, stated that the destruction of Mitchelstown Castle had been an act of wanton destruction which had no military purpose. He awarded £27,500 for the building and £18,000 for the contents. Most of this was used to build houses in Dublin as King-Harman decided that it was too small a sum for a rebuilding.

The stones of Mitchelstown Castle were subsequently sold to the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray Abbey, County Waterford, who used them to build a new abbey. In the 1940s, Mitchelstown Co-operative Agricultural Society built a milk processing factory on the site of the castle, which it had purchased together with some of the demesne lands that surrounded it. The site is now owned by Dairygold Co-op. The coats of arms of Mitchelstown Castle are now held by a local writer and will be erected in Mitchelstown's new public library, which will also have a special section devoted to local history and especially Mitchelstown Castle and its owners.

Famous guests at Mitchelstown Castle included George Bernard Shaw, Mary Wollstonecraft, Arthur Young, Elizabeth Bowen and Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau. The King family also produced several important figures including Viscount Kingsborough who was the author of 'The Antiquities of Mexico,' and Margaret, Countess Mount Cashell, to whom Percy Bysshe Shelley dedicated his poem 'A Sensitive Plant'.