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Castles for Rent
| Article
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12520 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
2,064 Words |
| Author
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Elgy Gillespie
Elgy Gillespie is a free-lance writer living in San Francisco,
California. |
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the
air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends
itself
Unto our senses (Macbeth, I.vi).
Oh, to be the lord of a manor...to sink into a winged arm-chair before a huge fire glowing under a chimneypiece, crested with the baronial shield of your ancestors, and flanked with your favorite hunting hounds. At suppertime you would take your place above the salt and hoist pewter mugs or Regency silverware. And if ghosts become bothersome, there is always the back pantry or the kitchen garden to retreat to; or failing that, the library alcove with the secret panel door.
Thousands of castellated stronghouses, keeps and castles - in varying degrees of disrepair - still jut into the European skyline. In Ireland's County Clare alone, there are over 400 castles dating back six centuries to Norman times, some elaborate, others in ruins.
Castles were once cold, uncomfortable places to live, without central heating and plumbing. Inhabitants wore several layers of clothing to keep warm, and rarely changed or washed. Sometimes, children were even sewn into their clothes to keep them warm.
Nowadays, there are modernized castles all over the European community - their civilized additions of warmth and comfort adding greatly to the cost of upkeep.
The owner of the ancient seat of the Earls of Mallow, near Cork, Ireland, is Washingtonian Michael McGinns, the great-great-great-grandson of Potato Famine emigrants. He and his wife, Judi, combed Ireland for their holiday cottage and fell for Mallow castle after glimpsing it on the front page of a newspaper. But the romance of a pile in the middle of this little barnacle on the side of Europe soon wore off. The McGinns count themselves blessed if they do not lose thousands of dollars each year keeping Mallow Castle warm and ticking.
Famous for the rare white deer that graze upon its lawns, Mallow was kept by the same family for over four centuries before the McGinns purchased it. In between visits, they try vainly to fix a smaller home on Washington's Capitol Hill and worry about paying the bills. "One week's letting makes the difference between joy and despair," says McGinns, who often accompanied
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