ASHFORD CASTLE 

Ashford Castle's history and travel information by castleturist.com
Image by Andreas Senftleben from Pixabay

Ashford Castle is a medieval and Victorian castle that has been expanded over the centuries and turned into a five-star luxury hotel near Cong on the Mayo-Galway border, on the Galway side of Lough Corrib in Ireland.

It is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World organisation and was previously owned by the Guinness family.

A castle was built on the perimeter of a monastic site in 1228 by the Anglo-Norman House of Burke.

After more than three-and-a-half centuries under the de Burgos, whose surname became Burke or Bourke, Ashford passed into the hands of a new master, following a fierce battle between the forces of the de Burgos and those of the English official Sir Richard Bingham, Lord President of Connaught, when a truce was agreed. In 1589, the castle fell to Bingham, who added a fortified enclave within its precincts.

Dominick Browne, of the Browne Family (Baron Oranmore and Browne), received the estate in a Royal Grant in either 1670 or 1678.[3] In 1715, the estate of Ashford was established by the Browne family and a hunting lodge in the style of a 17th-century French chateau was constructed. The double-headed eagles still visible on the roof represent the coat of arms of the Brownes.

In the late 18th-century, a branch of the family inhabited the castle. In the early 19th-century, one Thomas Elwood was an agent for the Brownes at Ashford and was recorded as living there in 1814