Editing Celbridge (section)

==Houses outside the town==

===Castletown House===
[[File:Castletown House near Celbridge Late 19th century.jpg|thumb|right|220px|[[Castletown House]], late 19th century-photograph from the fields between the house and the [[River Liffey]], showing an almost full view of this major [[Palladian]] house.]]
[[Castletown House]] is situated at the end of an avenue extending from the main street. It is Ireland's original and largest [[Palladian]] country house. Building commenced in 1722 by [[William Conolly|William "Speaker" Conolly]] (1662–1729), Speaker of the [[Irish House of Commons]], who came under the influence of the [[Palladian architecture|Neo-Palladians]], whose adherents included [[Alessandro Galilei]], believed to have designed the main house, and [[Edward Lovett Pearce]], thought to have designed the entrance hall and the long gallery in its original form, as well as the colonnades and wings. Pearce did commissions for William Conolly before his speculated involvement with Castletown.	
		
The house was inherited by [[Tom Conolly]] (1738–1803) in 1758 and the interior decoration was finished by his wife [[Lady Louisa Conolly|Louisa Lennox]] (greatgranddaughter of [[Charles II of England]] and [[Louise de Keroualle]]) during the 1760s and 1770s.
		
Two of the best known features of Castletown are the Long Gallery (an {{convert|80|ft|m|adj=on}} long room decorated in the [[Pompeii|Pompeian]] manner in blue and gold), and the main staircase (which is cantilevered and made of white [[Portland stone]]).	
[[File:The Obelisk aka Conolly's Folly (11186576504).jpg|thumb|The Obelisk]]
[[Conolly's Folly]] (also known as "The Obelisk") is an obelisk structure. It is built to the rear of [[Castletown House]] which contains two follies, both commissioned by the widow of Speaker [[William Conolly]] to provide employment for the poor of Celbridge at a time when [[Great Famine (Ireland)|famine]] was rife. As such these monuments serve no real purpose, instead they were dedicated to battles in the 16th century. The [[Obelisk]] was built in 1739 after a particularly severe winter. Designed by [[Richard Castle]], it is 42 metres high and is composed of several [[arch]]es, adorned by stone pineapples and eagles.	
		
The main avenue from the town is no longer accessible by vehicular traffic, which must enter the grounds from the roundabout off the M4.

===Celbridge Abbey===
[[Celbridge Abbey]] was the childhood (1688–1707) and later adult (1714–1723) home of [[Bartholomew Van Homrigh]]'s daughter [[Esther Vanhomrigh|Esther]] (1688–1723), the ill-starred lover of [[Jonathan Swift|Dean Swift]]. The poem in which Swift fictionalised her as "[[Vanessa (name)|Vanessa]]" "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713) was written seven years before he visited her in Celbridge in 1720. A rock bower associated with the lovers is a 19th-century recreation. The current [[Celbridge Abbey]] was constructed by [[Thomas Marlay (judge)|Thomas Marlay]], [[Lord Chief Justice of Ireland]], grandfather of the Irish parliamentarian [[Henry Grattan]]. His daughter Mary was married to [[James Grattan (MP for Dublin City)|James Grattan]], Henry Grattan's father and a member of the [[Irish House of Commons]]. A later occupant was [[Gerald Dease]], a Catholic nobleman who entertained the [[Elisabeth, Empress of Austria|Empress of Austria]] during her visit to Ireland. He is buried in a prominent position on front of the local Catholic church, the construction of which he helped to fund. The rock bridge in Celbridge Abbey grounds is now the oldest stone bridge across the [[River Liffey|Liffey]] since the removal of [[John Le Decer]]'s 1308 bridge three miles downriver at Salmon Leap.

===Oakley Park (St Raphael's)===
Oakley Park, the current St. Raphael's hospital was built in 1724 to a design by [[Thomas Burgh (1670–1730)|Thomas Burgh]] for [[Arthur Price, Bishop of Cashel|Arthur Price]], when he was created [[Church of Ireland]] [[Bishop of Meath]]. The house was built close to the small stone house of his father vicar of Kildrought and Straffan [[Samuel Price]]. Dr Price had previously been Bishop of [[Bishop of Clonfert|Clonfert]], [[Bishop of Ferns (Church of Ireland)|Ferns]] & [[Bishop of Leighlin (Church of Ireland)|Leighlin]], and later became Archbishop of [[Bishop of Cashel and Ossory|Cashel]]. After his departure for Cashel, Oakley Park became home to Col [[George Napier]], Richard Maunsell, High Sheriff of Kildare and his descendants, and, in 1926 Justin McCarthy. In 1946 it was sold by Philip Guiney the [[Irish Christian Brothers]] for use as an industrial school<ref>Irish Independent 18 April 1946 p.&nbsp;5</ref> but sold instead to the [[Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God|St John of God Brothers]] and opened as St Raphael's Hospital, a home for intellectually disabled boys in 1953.<ref>Irish Times 17 January 1953 p.&nbsp;11</ref> The grand parents of Henry Grattan are buried in a private graveyard on the site.

===Collegiate School (formerly Setanta Hotel, now Celbridge Manor Hotel)===
The former [[Collegiate School Celbridge|Collegiate School]] on the Clane Road was built 1732 by architect Thomas Burgh who also built the [[Collins Barracks (Dublin)|Royal Barracks]] and famous library building at [[Trinity College, Dublin|Trinity College]] both in [[Dublin]]. The Collegiate School was founded as a [[charity school]] by [[Lady Louisa Conolly|Louisa Conolly]] of Castletown (1743–1821). At the time of Lady Louisa's death it had 600 pupils, and served as a boarding school for Protestant girls until 1973. when the Incorporated Society for Promoting Protestant Schools in Ireland closed the school and transferred the pupils to [[Kilkenny College|Kilkenny]].<ref>Irish Times, 3 June 1974</ref> The building reopened as the Setanta Hotel on 25 January 1980.
Setanta Hotel closed down in 2008 but has since been refurbished and has reopened as the four-star Celbridge Manor Hotel.

===St Wolstan's===
[[St Wolstan's County Kildare|St Wolstan's]], near the site of the ancient Abbey of St Wolstan's described by [[Mervyn Archdall (Irish antiquary)|Mervyn Archdall]] in his "Monasticon Hibernicum" in 1786 was originally a monastery in the [[Order of St Victor]]. It was founded c1202 by one of [[Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke|Strongbow]]'s companions for [[Adam de Hereford]]. It was named for [[St Wolstan|St Wulfstan]], [[Bishop of Worcester]], then newly canonised by [[Pope Innocent III]]. Before the time of the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]] it had extensive lands in Kildare and Dublin with buildings covering an estimated 20 acres.<ref>St Wolstans Priory Celbridge by R Cane Claude (Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 1919) ASIN: B0018Z2YG4</ref> It was the first Irish Monastery to be [[Dissolution of the Monasteries|dissolved]] when Sir [[Gerald Aylmer, Irish Judge|Gerald Aylmer]] of nearby [[Lyons Hill|Lyons]] (died 1559) petitioned [[Henry VIII]]. It then became the home to the ill-fated Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Dublin [[John Alen]] (1476–1534). St Wolstan's after the Archbishop's cousin, also John Alen, who was master of the rolls, travelled with Aylmer to England in 1536 to receive the bill for suppression of the Irish monasteries. The act of St Wolstan's, introduced in September 1536 as a special commission of dissolution, assured Aylmer and his fellow chief justice and brother-in-law Thomas Luttrell an annual rent of £4 during the life of Sir Richard Weston, the last prior, while Alen was granted the monastery estates. The house remained with the Alen family for two subsequent centuries. St Wolstan's was then home to later Bishops of [[Bishop of Clogher|Clogher]] ([[Robert Clayton (bishop)|Robert Clayton]]) and [[Bishop of Limerick (Church of Ireland)|Limerick]], a summer resident of the Viceroy in the 1770s, a boys' school (sold 1809), home to the Cane family for another century and eventually a girls' secondary school (1957–1999) run by the Holy Faith sisters. When a new school building was built on the Clane Road in 2001, opening on 8 October, the name ''St. Wolstan's'' was reused for this.

===Other houses===
Other large houses outside the town<ref>[[Mark Bence-Jones]] ''Burke's Guide to Country Houses''</ref> include [[Killadoon, County Kildare|Killadoon]] a three-storey block with a single storey wing built c. 1770 (redecorated 1820) for [[Nathaniel Clements]] MP, banker and amateur architect. Significantly, it does not appear to have been designed by Clements himself.{{Citation needed|date=January 2015}} Clements is also reputed to have designed Colganstown house, built by the Yeats family c 1760 was the property of [[Dublin Corporation]] through the first half of the 19th century. It is associated with the Andrews, Sherlock, Colgan and Meade families. Pickering Forest is a three-storey Georgian house associated with the Brooke (Barons Somerton) and later Ogilby families.<ref>''Irish Times'', 21 August 1876 p.&nbsp;1 and 7 November 1905 p.&nbsp;6</ref> Donaghcumper is a Tudor revival house built by William Kirkpatrick c1835, was sold after the death of [[Ivone Kirkpatrick]] to J Bruce Bredin, Springfield was associated with the Jones and Warren families and then the Mitchell family until 1906.<ref>Irish Times, 25 September 1908 p.&nbsp;11</ref> Elm Hall was associated with the O'Connor family, Stacumny with the Lambert family, and Ballygoran with the Murray family, while The Grove was home of Dr. Charles O'Connor, resident surgeon for the workhouse and first chairman of [[Kildare GAA]] Board. Temple Mills was associated with the Tyrrell, Shaw and Von Mumm families and John Ellis. The parsonage, known as Robert Scott's house (rebuilt 1780, locally known as the "Shelbourne") fell into ruin and became the site of St Patrick's Park housing estate.

===Castles in the area===
Castles in the Celbridge area were at Castletown, Posseckstown, Simmonstown, Templemill, Reeves, Lyons, Barberstown and St. Wolstans.