The Irish countryside is usually a quiet place where little changes from year to year, but throughout history there have been many tumultuous events.
And one such event came on the morning of the 3rd of July 1921, during Ireland's war of independence from Britain. At 03:30 a group of IRA men, 60 strong, approached the castle, warning the staff and residents—at the time Handcock's wife and daughter—allowing them to remove many valuables before setting fire to the castle. It was burned beyond repair with damage worth millions in today's money.
Moydrum was the home of the Handcock family, Lord Castlemaine, who was Queen Victoria's representative for County Westmeath and a fervent Unionist, working politically against Home Rule which had sought to see the Irish parliament re-opened in Dublin.
As such, Moydrum became a target for destruction, like many of Ireland's Big Houses, those large estates and houses owned by English aristocracy in the Irish countryside.
Moydrum was largely rebuilt in 1812 to designs by Irish architect Richard Morrison, who also designed Powerscourt House in Wicklow, around an earlier structure from 1750.
The castle stands ruined today but saw another round of controversial events in the 1980s. In 1980 Moydrum, in ruins and ivy-clad, appeared in Simon Marsden's book In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland with a haunting black and white infrared image looking up at the castle; a beautiful image and typical of Marsden's style. Four years later, a very similar image appeared on the cover of U2's The Unforgettable Fire, an image taken in the same style and from almost the same angle featuring, of course, the band members.
The album cover was by Anton Corbijn, and U2 made a payment to Marsden in recognition of the likeness.
Today Moydrum sits much as it did in the 80s when Marsden and U2, with Corbijn, were there: ivy-clad and in ruins. Details of the building are still visible in places, such as the cross loops on the octagonal towers as seen in those images, though now a battered cattle trailer sits blocking the archway into the interior of the structure.
For anyone who knows the album, it contains some of U2's best early tracks and was a turning point in their career. Interestingly by coincidence, the album has a track called 4th of July and Moydrum had indeed by the 4th of July 1921 suffered an unforgettable fire as it lay smouldering in the heat of the Irish summer for a second day. The track was named for Hollie Evans, daughter of U2's guitarist The Edge, who was born on the 4th of July 1983. It was improvised by Adam Clayton and The Edge, and secretly recorded by producer Brian Eno.
It sits on private land and a sign warns of that, so it is impossible to get the same angle of image as seen in the aforementioned works, but not a bad attempt on a limited-time, quick visit to this quiet corner of rural Ireland.
The Unforgettable Fire was recorded at Slane Castle as well as Dublin's Windmill Lane Studios seen here below.
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