EARLY HISTORY:
Although Birr has long been known in Celtic Ireland for the
monastery which produced the Mac Regol Gospels, or the Book
of Birr, it was Sir Laurence Parsons who first developed it as a
town when it was granted to him in 1620.
Sir William Parsons settled in Ireland in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was Commissioner of Plantations in Ireland and obtained large grants of land from the Crown. He was for some time Lord-Justice in conjunction with Sir John Borlace, but was removed in 1643. From this, Sir William Parsons descended the Earls of Rosse.
It was in 1640, that Thomas Stockdale of Bilton, married Margaret Parsons,
the daughter of Sir Laurence Parsons.
Sir Laurence Parsons, the second earl, represented the University of Dublin, and afterwards the King's County, and in the Irish Parliament, where he distinguished himself, especially in his efforts against the Union, as an eloquent and popular speaker. He continued to represent the King's County in the Imperial Parliament until the death of his uncle, on the 20th April, 1807, when he became second Earl of Rosse.
He died, 24th February, 1841, and was succeeded by his son, William Parsons, third Earl of Rosse, who was born at York on the 17th June, 1800, and died in 1867. He was buried in the church of St. Brandon, Birr (or Parsonstown).
This earl was the eminent astronomer, who, after seventeen years labor, and at an outlay of upwards of £20,000, constructed the great telescope which is known by his name.
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He was known as a genial companion and a liberal landlord. He was succeeded by his son, Laurence Parsons, the fourth Earl of Rosse, living in 1888.
He started weekly markets,as well as a glass factory.
Also, he laid down ordinances for the town folk; those who "cast dung rubbage, filth, or weepings" in the forestreet were to be fined 4d. Those who lit fires in their houses
other than stone chimneys were to be banished from the town, and any
woman serving beer as a barmaid was to be set in the stocks by the
constable for three whole market days.
Most of the castle today date from the time of Sir Laurence. He built
a dwelling house over and around the gate house of the original fortress,
which forms the center of the present castle. He either built or restored
two flanking towers on either side. A generation later these towers were
incorporated into the house.
1640 - 1700
SIEGES AND SURVIVAL
In 1642, the Molloys,
Coghlands and Ormonders set fire to the town, blew upon their bagpipes and
beat upon their drums and fell dancing in the hills. The castle was besieged
and finally capitulated when one of the masons who had been involved in the
construction of the flanker placed a mine under it.
Trouble came again in
1690 when Birr, garrisoned by the Williamites, was besieged by the army of
the Duke of Berwick. Cannon balls flew through the parlor window, leaving marks
in the walls of the north flanker, which are there still to this day
Lady Parsons gave up the lead cistern she used for salting beef to be melted down for bullets,
and the besieging army was finally repulsed.
The sieges left their mark on the
park as well as on the castle. The lines from which the castle was besieged still
can be seen leading to Cromwell's Hollow.
In spite of these disturbances, the
beginnings of the formal gardens were laid out at this time and the famous Box
Hedges were planted.
The wives and the daughters of the house grew vegetables, collected medicinal
remedies, those for curing of "green wounds, and bruises inward and outward
caused by fall or blow," presumably proving useful in times of trouble. In a firm
hand and with uninhibited spelling they wrote cookery recipes for preserving their
fruits and vegetables, chicken fricassee and artichoke pie.
1700 - 1800
Peace came again with the eighteenth century. Sir William Parsons, the second
baronet, was a friend of Handel, who gave him an engraved walking stick in
consideration of the patronage which led to the Messiah being first performed in
Dublin.
His grandson, another Sir William, the fourth baronet, began to landscape the park.
He turned the bog into lake, planted beech trees and tore down the last of the old
towers of the original fortress in order to complete the sweeping view of the beautiful
park.
His son, fifth baronet, became well known as a patriot statesman, whose friend of
college days, Wolf Tone, referred to him as "one of the very few honest men in the Irish
House of Commons."
This honesty led him, not only to oppose the Union with all his strength, but also, to
expose the bribery the British used to push it through.
1800 - 1840
ARCHITECTURE AND EARLDOM
Sir William retired from politics at the beginning of the 19th century,
disgusted at the Act of the Union, though he later accepted the post of joint
Postmaster General and saw Dublin's magnificent GPO built during the term of
his office.
He devoted the rest of his life to literature (being a great friend of
Maria Edgeworth) and to building.
The castle began to take it's final form at this time with Sir Lawrence
turning the old house back to front, in order to face the park, heightening
and renevating it to the new Gothic style and adding the great Gothic saloon
whose windows can be seen looking down on the waterfalls of the Camcor.
In 1807, Sir Lawrence inherited from his uncle in County Longford, the title
of "Lord of Rosse" and had by this time married Alice Lloyd of Gloster.
He disapproved of the children being sent away to school,and they were
brought up by tutors at home in an enlightened atmosphere of building
and construction and even engineering. It was during this time that the
Suspension Bridge was built over the Camor. This was the earliest known
anywhere and is first described in 1826 as a "curious wire bridge
which hangs as if it were suspended in the air just under the castle."
1840 - 1900
ASTRONOMY AND ENGINEERING
The second Earl's eldest son, William who
became the 3rd Earl of Rosse, constructed in the 1840's, the giant telescope
which is located in the middle of the Park. He designed and built it himself with
no more than the means then available in central Ireland. The huge 6' speculum
was cast in a furnace which was constructed at the bottom of the moat and was
fired by turf off the local bogs.
The immense power of the telescope enabled the Earl to see further into space
than anyone had done before, and attracted astronomers from as far as the US,
Australia and Imperial Russia, whence they made the pilgrimage to Birr as the
only observatory in the world which could see so far into space.
The third Earl became especially interested in the nebulae and particularly in
those of a spiral nature. He recorded them in drawings whose clarity was not
matched until the powerful photography of the next century.
The last observation through the giant telescope took place in the early 1900's;
and until 1996, the 56 foot tube lay between the stone walls where it fell into
disrepair.
The Great Telescope has now been restored as part of a 4.4 million pounds
development. It once again looks and moves as it did over 150 years ago.
Like his father, the third Earl educated his sons at home, and the eldest,
Lawrence, who succeeded as 4th Earl in 1867 and became a famous
astronomer, though he concentrated mostly on the moon, whose heat he
succeeded in measuring with a special instrument of his own invention.
His youngest son, Charles Algernon Parsons, was an even greater inventive
genius and developed the Steam Turbine, which is commemorated by
the issuance of an Irish postage stamp.
Note: Adam Loftus, one of the founders of Trinity College in Dublin, was related
to the Parsons of Offaly.
