{"id":1114,"date":"2013-08-09T16:26:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T16:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.229.91.100\/libraryandarts\/library\/ehistory\/?p=1114"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:27:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T14:27:43","slug":"christmas-in-the-big-house-a-childs-memoir-of-castletown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/christmas-in-the-big-house-a-childs-memoir-of-castletown\/","title":{"rendered":"CHRISTMAS IN THE BIG HOUSE … A CHILD’S MEMOIR OF CASTLETOWN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas in the Big House \u2026 a child\u2019s memoir of Castletown<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Picture the scene \u2013 a twenty-foot high Christmas tree in the hall of a big house, children excitedly picking out a present from one of the 200 or so wrapped gifts under the tree, and the aroma of plum pudding wafting up from a basement kitchen. It\u2019s like an image from a period costume drama of the kind which garners huge viewing audiences. But the Christmas scene described here comes not from a scriptwriter\u2019s imagination but from the first hand memories of a woman who experienced childhood and adolescence in the \u201cup-stairs down-stairs\u201d world of the big house. It is just one of many resonant pictures of life in Castletown House, Celbridge to be found in a new book entitled \u201cThe Children of Castletown House\u201d by Sarah Connolly-Carew and published by the History Press.
\nSarah is one of the four children of the last family to live in Castletown as a main residence. With an authorial team that includes her brothers Patrick and Gerald, and her sister Diana (one of Ireland\u2019s greatest equestriennes) and a foreword written by the great Georgian, Desmond Guinness of Leixlip Castle, this sparkling book gives an intimate and engaging picture of what it was like to grow up in the twilight years of the \u201cBig House\u201d. For Castletown is as big as they come \u2013 not alone in scale but also in terms of architectural repute. It\u2019s perfectly proportioned classical design influenced the architects for Leinster House and the White House (Jackie Kennedy visited to check out the similarities for herself) \u2013 while the treasures of art and plasterwork in its interior have given it international status among cognoscenti of great house d\u00e9cor.
\nMuch has been written about Castletown\u2019s architectural splendour and about the lineage of the great Connolly family associated with this Palladian gem.
\nHowever Sarah Connolly Carew opens up another vista of Castletown — a more intimate and earthier one than available in standard histories.\u00a0 She weaves the wonder of childhood and the excitement of adolescence into the fabric of the house which comes alive as the setting for escapades and adventures. The Christmas memories are typical of the author\u2019s engaging style of writing.\u00a0 Recalling the tradition of inviting in the children of the farm workers into the house on Christmas morning Sarah recalls: \u201c\u2026 there would be a 20ft tree in the hall with presents for every one of the estate children. There would be nearly 200 gifts carefully wrapped up and labelled with each name. There parents were given money, a joint of beef, and extra milk and butter.\u201d
\nA strength of the memoir is that it avoids sugary nostalgia but always makes reference to the practicalities of life for those living in the big house and those resident on its estates. She recalls the Christmas morning when one of the Leixlip residents of the Castletown estate, a Mrs Farrelly, did not seem to be joining in with the fun as her three children participated in the present giving. Her worry was that the Connolly\u2019s had been bringing 1950s amenities such as electricity and water to the cottages on the estate and she was worried that her rent would go up as a result of the improvements. However Sarah\u2019s father, William Connolly-Carew, reassured a concerned Mrs Farrelly that there would be no rent increase and that she could enjoy Christmas without worry. That gesture of seasonal good-will concealed another reality \u2026 that the rents and income from the farm were no longer enough to maintain a big house which was beginning to show its age spanning three centuries. The struggle by the Connolly-Carew\u2019s to keep Castletown viable as a home and farm is an instructive insight into the economics of the big house in the 20th century. It\u2019s near brush with disaster when the family sold Castletown to developers who abandoned the house for a number of years allowing it almost to fall apart is the stuff of thrillers. Enter the white knight Desmond Guinness whose foresight saved Castletown for the nation. All of this roller-coaster drama is chronicled in vivid prose by Sarah Connolly-Carew who in a work of considerable social history names the farm workers, the shop-keepers in Celbridge, and the members of the Kildare hunting and farming fraternity all of whose lives were intertwined with Castletown. And while the Christmas memoirs are only a small part of the Castletown narrative they do provide some of the homeliest and earthiest cameos in the story. Connolly senior (otherwise Lord Carew) was a practical man and when told by his wife to go shopping in Celbridge for the gifts for the estate children he produced a roll of Bronco (toilet) paper and began to write the list. As the author recalls, in the years when even paper was scarce, the loo roll was the only practical way to write a long list of names. She recalls the giggles of the shop assistants in Celbridge who had to suppress their mirth so as not to make fun out of a valued customer!
\n\u201cThe Children of the Big House\u201d by Sarah Connolly-Carew is a great read and a fabulous insight into the behind-the-hall-door realities of \u201cBig House\u201d life and its social circles. Published in a classy presentation with colour and black-and-white photographs \u201cThe Children of Castletown\u201d is available from bookshops or by contacting the History Press on 01 244 9470.<\/p>\n

Series no: 310.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgement:<\/strong> thank you to Carmel Locke, Clane whose enthusiasm for Castletown is an inspiration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Liam Kenny reviews Sarah Connolly-Carew’s memoir \u201cThe Children of Castletown\u201d. Our thanks to Liam<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liam Kenny reviews Sarah Connolly-Carew’s memoir “The Children of Castletown”. Our thanks to Liam<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,33,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-built-heritage","category-looking-back","category-social-history"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8822,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114\/revisions\/8822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}