Castletown House

The Wonderful Barn

This unusual corkscrew shaped building was built in 1743 to close the vista to the east of Castletown. The only similar building in Ireland is the bottle-tower near Rathfarnham in Co. Dublin, also incidentally a Conolly estate. Built at a time of famine, it was used to store grain. A stone staircase winds around the outside leading to the top. Inside each floor has a hole in the centre allowing the grain to be passed through. Two smaller structures of a similar design, used as dovecotes stand behind the main barn structure. While the Barn closed the eastern vista, the vista to the west was closed by the Celbridge Charter school (c.1730), built from funds left in Speaker Conolly’s will. It is now the Setanta House Hotel.