Kenmare House

Kenmare House is located on the shores of Lough Leane and was the principle residence of the Brownes of Killarney, Earls of Kenmare. Sir Valentine Browne was the first of the family to settle in Ireland, with his son, also Valentine Browne, in 1588 - the year of the Armada - he made an agreement with MacCarty Mor for a lease on the lands of Coshmang and Ross. The family's first residence in Killarney was Ross Castle.

There has being a Kenmare House on this site since the 16th Century, with the present building orginaly being the stables of Kenmare House (1726) which incorporated the 16th Cent. Kenmare House.

The original Kenmare House was build in 1726, after the estates were recovered by the 5th Baronet and 3rd Viscount. It was a large and imposing building with aspects of a French chateau, perhaps influencd by the Brownes time spent in France with King James II in exile at Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The family had being created Viscounts Kenmare by King James II of England in 1689.

It was of two stories with dormered attics and steep, slated roofs. There were 13 bays in front, with three of the bays on either side breaking forward. Viscount Kenmare designed the house himself. A servants wing was added about 1775. Early writers praised the house: Smith (1756) praises the Seat and gardens as does Coquebert in 1790, who mentions that the chimneys were made of marble (rose-coloured and grey and black). O'Donovan (1846) thinks it is a handsome house, beautifully shaded with trees and shurbs.

On 26th August 1861, Valentine, Lord Castlerosse, played host to Queen Victoria at Killarney. In June 1866 King Leopold II of the Belgians visited the Kenames at Killarney.

During the visit of Queen Victoria to Kenmare House, she choose the site of Killarney House, a vast Victorian-Tudor mansion, which was the sucessor to Kenmare House. The house was demolised in 1872 by the fouth Earl. When this house was accidently gutted by fire in 1913 and never rebuilt; instead the stable block was converted into the present Kenmare House.

Sir Edwin Lutyens (who certainly did work for Lady Kenmare's brother, the 3rd Lord Revelstoke, at Lambay Castle on Lambay Island, Co. Dublin) advised Lord Kenmare on the new Kenmare House. This Kenmare House was later abandoned and sold when a new Kenmare House, built confusingly on the site of the former Killarney House, was constructed in 1956 by Mrs. Beatrice Grosvenor (grandaughter of the Duke of Westminster), only to be replaced by a third Kenmare House less than twenty years later, in 1974. This last Kenmare House was built on the Killorglin Road out of Killarney, beside the Killarney golf course and the Castlerosse Hotel. Its sale in 1985 effectively marks the end of the Kenmare family's proprietorial connection with Killarney after 450 years.