Adare Manor
Adare Manor is a manor house located on the banks of the River Maigue in the village of Adare, County Limerick, Ireland, the former seat of the Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl. The present house was built in the early 19th century, though retaining some of the walls of the 17th-century structure. It is now the Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort, a luxury hotel, and contains the Michelin-starred Oak Room restaurant.
The first mention of a manor on the land is following the Norman invasion of Ireland. In 1226, King Henry III gave a grant to Justiciary of Ireland Geoffroi de Morreis (de Marisco) to hold an eight-day annual fair following the Feast of St. James at his Manor of Adare.
The lands subsequently were granted to the Earls of Kildare, members of the Welsh-Norman FitzGerald family who came to Ireland in 1169. In 1536, the act of attainder was passed against Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare, whose lands, castles and manors were forfeited to the crown.
In a letter dated 24 March 1547, the boy king Edward VI granted the Earls of Desmond “the manors and dominions of Croom and Adare, in the county of Limerick, to hold for life.” The grant was short lived; the Desmond Rebellions brought control of the lands to the St. Leger family. For the next century, the lands passed from 10 families: St. Leger, Zouch, Gold, Rigges, Wallop, Norreis (Norris), Jephson, Evans, Ormesby (Ormsby), and then Quin.
Thady Quin, Esq. (1645–1726) of Gortfadda, County Leitrim, purchased the moiety in 1669 and continued to add surrounding land through 1702. He received the last land grant for Adare, on 16 December 1684, to hold the lands for a thousand years, “paying to Gilbert Ormsby and his heirs the rent of £230.” The earliest section of the first manor house was presumably a square or oblong tower, likely erected by Thady Quin at the end of the 17th century.
