MENLO CASTLE

Where?   Galway, Ireland

What?     Disaster-hit ruin enveloped in a riot of emerald green

LIKE STARING at a Magic Eye picture, you can’t see it until you see it. At first there looks to be nothing but a fuzz of foliage; a tangle of leaves, vines and trees clumped by the riverbank. But concentrate harder, and the cloak of invisibility begins to lift. There’s substance behind that choke of green. The leafage leaps into man-made forms: gables and chimney stacks, window holes and crenellations. As rooks caw up above and the waterway gently burbles, a castle takes shape. A once magnificent manor beset by tragedy, now being swallowed by Mother Nature ...

‘Of all the countries in the world, Ireland is the country for ruins.’ So noted German writer and geographer Johann Georg Kohl after travelling there in 1841. ‘Here you have ruins of every period ... each century has marked its progress.’ Certainly Ireland is replete with ailing castles. A history plagued by conflict means the country was moved to create an abundance of these defensive structures, which were ritually destroyed by invading forces or rival clans. Many castles fell to the New Model Army during the 17th-century Cromwellian conquest; others were firebombed in the early 20th century, during the Irish War of Independence. The prevailing weather – Atlantic-blown, notoriously damp – has speeded the deterioration of some; others have been victims of poor economics or bad luck.

One such victim of the latter is half-hidden Menlo. Built on the River Corrib in 1569, it was the ancestral home of the Blakes, one of the 14 Tribes of Galway – the families that dominated politics and trade in medieval Galway – and once the richest and most influential family in the county. Sir Thomas Blake was Mayor of Galway at the time the castle was constructed, and many of his descendants went on to hold the same post. In 1651, Sir Thomas’s great-great-grandson, Sir Valentine, fought for the Royalists against Cromwell during the Siege of Galway, and his failure to defend the town saw him stripped of his property. However, thanks to brother Walter, a wealthy wine and wool merchant, Menlo Castle was saved. And it continued to house the Blakes until 26 July 1910, when disaster struck.

Reports called it the worst fire in the west of Ireland for decades. No one knows how it began but it’s thought to have started in the apartment of Miss Ellen Blake, invalid daughter of the then baronet, who was resident at the time. The alarm was raised around 5.40a.m. The coachman managed to escape by climbing out of his window. The household’s only other residents, two servant girls, were trapped on the roof and had to jump; one died. By the time the fire brigade arrived, it was too late. The whole building was alight and raging. By 7a.m., the roof had collapsed and the insides had been gutted. Miss Ellen’s body was never found. The castle has been a ruin ever since.

Some say Menlo is the handsomest of all Ireland’s abandoned keeps. It’s arguably the most concealed. The castle hides in plain sight, just a few miles outside Galway, its pelisse of weeds and ivy so completely swamping the old stone walls that they merge right into the fields. From the University of Galway, on the opposite side of the river, you have to squint to make it out at all.

Get closer, approaching via Menlo cemetery – where several Blakes have been laid to rest – and you’ll see a drive leading under an old stone arch. Beyond this, a rusty gate and gangs of nettles are all the defences the castle mounts these days. Officially, this is private land, but many a curious passerby has vaulted the gate for a closer look. Valuable paintings and rich Belgian tapestries, said to be 300 years old, went up in the blaze, as did the whole interior. All that remains are doorless doorways, empty fireplaces and hints in the masonry of Menlo’s distinguished past.