The Walled Garden
A walled garden is a magical place as Mary Lennox found out on discovering the keys to a secret kingdom, in the book The Secret Garden not only did it grow flowers but friendships too, transforming the pale, self centred, moody Mary into a whole, kind person who’s ready to move forward into adulthood. The large walled garden in Parknasilla has that same other worldly aura,perched looking over the little harbour of Goleenduff in the townland of Derryquin it’s shelter and walls provide a milder micro climate which allowed peaches, pears, figs to grow along its tall walls.
Garden and Archery
Todays its gardeners Mike, David, Pat and Patrick still till the seaweed enriched soil, growing flowers for bee and table as well as vegetables and herbs for the kitchen. Guarded from the Atlantic winds a line of traditional straw wound archery target allow friends and family to further step back to a bygone age.
Derryquin Castle
But whats missing is it’s context, once upon at time it lay next to a castle now buried beneath, where it once stood majestically. This is its story and the Bland and Warden families that owned and lived within this Victorian faux gothic castle.
The Derryquin Blands
The Blands of Derryquin Castle Demense were a Yorkshire family, the first of whom Rev. James Bland came to Ireland in 1692 and from 1693 was vicar of Killarney. His son Nathaniel, a judge and vicar general of Ardfert and Aghadoe obtained a grant of land in 1732 which would later become the Derryquin Estate. Derryquin Castle was the third house of the Blands on this land but it is not known when it was first constructed, its earliest written mention being in 1837, however it was indicated some decades earlier by Nimmo in his 1812 map.
A self supporting community
The estate is said to have reached its zenith under the guidance of James Franklin Bland (1799-1863). His nephew the well known architect James Franklin Fuller described the castle estate in his
autobiography as a largely self-supporting community busy with sawmill, carpenter’s shop, forge as well as farming and gardening. A fish pond existed on the water’s edge just below the castle, alternatively described as being self-replenishing with the tide or restocked from a trawler.
Change is on the way
The castle itself consisted of a three-storey main block with a four-storey octagonal tower rising through the centre and a two storey partly curved wing branching off in a western direction. Major renovations were carried out and a significant additional wing running southwest, overlooking the coastline was added sometime between 1895 and 1904.
James Franklin Bland’s death in 1863 the estate passed to his son Francis Christopher, the estate slipped into decline during the time that he was absent while travelling and preaching on Christian ministry, this being during the years of land agitation in Ireland. Part of the estate was sold in the landed estates court in 1873 but ultimately the decline continued with the remainder being sold in 1891.
Colonel Charles Wallace Warden
It was bought in 1891 for £30,000 by Colonel Charles Wallace Warden. He had retired in 1895 as Colonel of the Middlesex Regiment (previously known as the 57th) He had seen action in the Zulu War of 1879 and on his death on 9th March 1953 in his 98th year was its oldest survivor. He also fought with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Boer War. As landlord of Derryquin he was highly unpopular with tenants and neighbours alike, his behaviour regularly mentioned in Parliament. After the burning of Derryquin Castle he retired to Buckland-tout-Saints in Devon and acquired an estate there with his payment from the burning of Derryquin.
BBC Feature
However in 2014 Derryquin castle rose again out of the ashes to feature in a novel by Christopher Bland chairman of the BBC who having discovered a photo of his ancestors decided to write the novel Ashes in the Wind it interweaves the destinies of two families: the Anglo-Irish Burkes and the Catholic Irish Sullivans, beginning in 1919 with a shocking murder and the burning of the Burkes’ ancestral castle in Kerry. Childhood friends John Burke and Tomas Sullivan will find themselves on opposite sides of an armed struggle that engulfs Ireland. Only 60 years later will the triumphant and redemptive finale of this enthralling story be played out.
Fitting End
Its only fitting that this once beautiful castle should end up it the world of the imagination and its days of inspiring a new stories is a creative well that will not be dried up for a long time yet. You see a walled garden is a magical place its just the portal to a deeper history of our enchanted land.
