Fort Knocks
Interventionist or repro? Previous generations had so such qualms. A Georgian house unabashedly cheek by jowl with a towerhouse, that most Irish of scenes. Transoms clash with sashes; battlements upstage parapets. Benburb Castle (sometimes called Wingfield’s Castle) does one better: a Georgian house inside a fort. Bungalow in a bawn, so to speak. It is dramatically perched on a wooded cliff above the River Blackwater, the waterway separating County Tyrone from County Armagh. Benburb Castle was built by Sir Richard Wingfield circa 1615 on the site of a stronghold of Shane O’Neill, head of the O’Neill clan. Sir Richard was the Chief Governor of Ireland. His descendants would own Powerscourt in County Wicklow. Shane would give his name to the eponymous castle in County Antrim.
