Adare Manor

If a passer by had stopped to look at the Dunraven family home in the 1830s he would have seen a typical Georgian house. Returning twenty years later, he would have found that modest structure had disappeared and been replaced by the exceptional Neo-Gothic Manor that stands to this day. Staring at its towers, bays and steep roofs, he might have wondered what prompted such a great change. It is unlikely he would have guessed the reason, for the Manor owes its existence to one of the most excruciating ailments of that time. The 2nd Earl of Dunraven, an active outdoors man, had been laid low by gout, and confined to indoors. His wife, Lady Caroline, had encouraged him to embrace this immense undertaking to distract him from the pain of the disease. It was a distraction that would develop and mature into the next generation.