Castletown Cultural Programme: The Historic Landscape of Castletown House
Dates
11/04/2026
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Location
Castletown House and Parklands
An illustrated talk by Finola O’Kane, landscape historian, architect and Professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin
This illustrated lecture will explore the historic character of the demesne landscape of Castletown House in Celbridge, Co. Kildare, touching on its outstanding universal value for all Irish people. It will discuss some of the key people involved in its creation, many of them women. It will outline its wonderful water landscape of cascades, ponds, rivulets and streams leading to the Liffey and its folly landscape of cottages, lodges and other garden buildings (surviving and lost). It will touch upon its extraordinary arboriculture heritage and the conservation of its wonderful avenues, clumps, specimen trees and forêt ornée.
Finola O’Kane is a landscape historian, architect, and Professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin. Her books include Landscape Design in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Mixing Foreign Trees with the Natives (Cork, 2004), Ireland and thePicturesque: Design, Landscape Painting, and Tourism, 1700–1840 (PMC/Yale, 2013) and the recent Landscape Design and Revolution in Ireland and the United States 1688-1815, (PMC/Yale, June, 2023).
Professor O’Kane has also published widely on eighteenth-century Dublin, Irish urban and suburban history, and plantation landscapes, with the co-edited volume Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean: Interdisciplinary Perspectives published in 2023 by Manchester University Press.
Elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2017, in 2024 she was appointed one of six Senior Fellows at Dumbarton Oaks by the Trustees of Harvard University for 2024-2027 and is currently also a Visiting Fellow at the School of History and Archives, TCD.
The 2026 talks’ series at Castletown House is dedicated to the memory of the late Jeanne Meldon and is presented by the Office of Public Works (OPW) in association with The Castletown Foundation.
Tickets are €5 pp and can be booked via Eventbrite
Getting Here
Castletown is easily accessible by public transport.
By Bus:
From Dublin City Centre: The C4 goes from Ringsend Road via City Centre Quays to Celbridge village. Alight at stop 3907 and the Castletown Gates are in front of you.
The 120 bus (operated by Go-Ahead) goes from Dublin City Centre towards Edenderry. Take the 120 to stop 7085, English Row and walk up Main Street to the Castletown Gates.
By Train:
From Hazelhatch rail station, take the W61 bus to Main Street Celbridge, stop number 3907 and the Castletown Gates are in front of you.
By Car
Access to the car park at Castletown house via the M4 will resume from Sunday afternoon 21st of December 2025.
Click the relevant icon below to open Maps directions
