ACCLAIMED British actor Jeremy Irons has revealed how he rescued his spectacularly restored 15th century West of Ireland castle from ruins.
The 69-year-old star bought Kilcoe Castle and its estate in 1998 after falling in love with the quiet life in Roaringwater Bay, near Skibbereen in West Cork.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Irons spoke of undertaking a gruelling restoration project – costing €1.5million over six years – to bring the ruin back to life.
“I remember the very first night I spent here on my own,” Irons told the US magazine.
“It’s a very interesting building, because it’s very male and erect: a phallus. And yet, within, it’s a womb.
“Very strange like that. And I thought, I’m completely protected. I’m away from everything.
“It’s a wonderful feeling. And that’s what it gives me.”
When Irons and his Irish wife, actress Sinéad Cusack, purchased Kilcoe Castle almost twenty years ago, it was a roofless, run-down structure of weathered grey stone covered in wild shrubbery and grass.
But today – thanks to the actor’s intervention – Kilcoe stands tall (65ft feet tall, in fact) as one of West Cork’s most eye-catching historical landmarks.
Kilcoe Castle has become one of West Cork's most recognisable landmarks (Picture: Twitter)After Kilcoe’s restoration concluded in the early 2000s, newspapers in Ireland and Britain claimed locals were angry at the castle’s “sudden transformation from weathered gray to warm pink.”
Yes, he chose to paint the exterior of the castle in a warm tone of pink.
But Irons dismissed the controversy, saying such stories were “nonsense” and that the ‘Disneyfied’ retreat has become a proud symbol of the local area’s heritage.
“I told them all,” he said, “‘What you need to remember is that what we’re doing is a jazz theme on the medieval.’
“I relish risk. Risk is extra life.”
Kilcoe was one of the last fortresses in Co. Cork to fall to the English during the early 1600s, following the Battle of Kinsale.
It had been the powerful McCarthy family’s most westerly base and their only coastal foothold as they looked to resist the ascendancy of the English crown.
In 1602, soldiers led by Sir George Carew, Lord President of Munster, descended on the area in a successful bid to break the power of the Gaelic chieftains.
The following century saw an influx of settlers mainly from England, but a significant number were Protestants (Huguenots) fleeing persecution in Catholic France.
Irons married Irish actress Sinéad Cusack in 1978 and the couple have two sons, Sam and Max (Picture: Getty)The Swantons from Norfolk quickly became the most prominent family in the local area, and by the late 18th century they had succeeded in changing the name of Ballydehob to Swanton's Town – before it switched back in 1821.
Irons explained how he bought Kilcoe while Ireland was experiencing record economic growth during its so-called Celtic Tiger years.
He said that following 2008’s financial crash, his fear “that someone would come along with too much money and mess the place up” came to pass.
Nevertheless, Jeremy is proud to call Kilcoe Castle his home. And so is wife Sinéad, who has two children with the British thespian – eldest son Sam and fellow actor Max.
Sinéad said she was “hyperventilating” when her husband told her that he had bought the castle before he’d gotten round to telling her.
“I was very shocked, and hyperventilated immediately,” she said.
“I’m still hyperventilating to this day, both at the beauty of what he’s done and because of the amount of breath it takes to get from the bottom of the stairs to the top.
“But I understood where the need came from. Jeremy can’t bear waste. He can’t throw things out.
“I think he saw that castle as a beautiful ruin that needed to be saved, that needed not to die.”
