James Nesbitt's Ireland (2013) s01e07 Episode Script
Episode 7
Ireland.
A country blessed with stunning scenery, beautiful beaches, lively characters, and fascinating stories to be told.
Hobby horses will always be number one.
I'm James Nesbitt and I've been on a voyage of discovery around my homeland.
This is an island I'm proud to call home.
So many people have a place in their heart for Ireland.
I just feel so extraordinarily lucky to be here.
And who can blame them? So come with me on my journey.
You won't be disappointed.
You can't walk down the road in Ireland without stumbling across a castle, like this gem in Belfast.
400 ft above sea level and with spectacular views.
Trust me.
We love a castle and Ireland is blessed with hundreds of them.
Ruins and crumbling towers, neo-gothic structures and medieval fortresses pepper the landscape.
There's rich history at every turn.
And these are badges of a nation's heritage.
It's no wonder the Irish have a reputation for romance if we get to call places like this home.
This week we'll look at the people who have all claimed a small piece of this beautiful country for themselves.
I wanted a place where I could play castles.
My children love growing up here so they appreciate all they have around them.
And I'll discover the delights of owning a property fit for a king.
So, are you tempted? Well, my girls would love it, I think.
Ireland.
A place where anything is possible, even owning a castle.
So .
.
this is what people who look for castles come to me and expect.
Helen Cassidy runs an agency that specialises in this very particular kind of property.
She sells castles.
People get very passionate about them and you can really feel their hearts are pounding when they arrive and look at a tower house such as this and feel, 'Yes, perhaps it could be mine.
' It's a wonderful address.
My castle, in Ireland.
It's not every estate agent who investigates murder holes.
Essentially you could pour boiling oil and deter anyone who had evil intent coming towards you.
Or clambers down into dungeons.
So I've been requested to take some photos of the stonework.
I'm sure it was a rather grim life it you were imprisoned here.
But that's part of the job for Helen.
I have a huge passion for Irish history and the fact that I can actually make my living hopefully out of selling them is a wonderful thing.
Castles come in all shapes and sizes.
And with ancient Irish history one of invasion and settlement, Helen is kept busy.
This is a 15th-century tower house.
The great hall historically would have been used by the lord and his family.
When you look up at the gallery, here you would have had your poets, your bards, your musicians entertaining the people down here.
I don't think I've ever brought anybody into this room without them going, 'Wow!' With centuries of heritage at her feet We're looking in the region of 750,000 Euro for this property.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
.
.
there's something out there for pretty much everyone.
I deal in dreams.
They want a fantasy to become a reality.
And I hope that the starting point for them is in contacting me and looking at what I have on offer.
Helen's diary is packed with people all wanting their own, rather grand corner of Ireland.
And then, on the third floor, you're looking at your drawing room, dinning room.
Which is really pretty.
OK, so, here is where you were defending you castle from attack.
Isn't it fantastic? Wonderful view.
Yeah.
They say that Cromwell stayed here.
Really.
Well, they say that about very many castle, I guess.
My job is very different.
It's extremely interesting.
I really never no what's going to happen next.
One of the most spectacular castles on Helen's books is found in County Offaly.
14th-century Cloghan Castle is a national historical monument set within 157 acres.
Boasting three private gardens, 80,000 trees and, come the winter floods, a seven-mile-long wildlife sanctuary, this will make someone a pretty unique home.
Hello, James.
You're very welcome to Cloghan Castle.
Thank you.
Lovely to see it.
It's a beautiful place.
But you, of course, sell castles.
Indeed, I do.
Are they dotted all over the place? There are supposed to be about 3,000 castles in Ireland.
Is there much call - Demand for castles.
Demand, yeah.
Yes, there is.
My buyers tend to be, let's say, Americans with connections somehow or other and Irish people as well.
Are they varied the castles? Do they come in all sizes? We think of castles as being similar to this.
Towers, turrets They can be nice and small too.
And they can be nice and cheap.
Really? My cheapest castle is about 75,000 Euro and we'll do a deal on that.
Now, this one here is also for sale.
Indeed.
This is a very important and historic castle, Cloghan Castle.
In terms of being a mystical, real true Irish castle that has seen bloodshed and murder and history and the whole show.
It doesn't get much better than this.
How much is this going for? I'm guiding in the region of 1.
3 million Euro.
Oh, right.
So it's very reasonable.
It's very affordable.
I can see that.
Perhaps you'll give me a show around then.
I certainly can.
Fantastic.
Have you brought your cheque book? Oh, dear.
That'll bounce.
What to see exactly what 1.
3 million Euro get's you? Me too.
So join me later to take a look inside.
The appeal of an Irish heritage is so strong that many visitors spend their trips here exploring their Irish roots.
And whether your ancestors lived in a castle or a cottage, Ireland is a place many are keen to call home.
Homes don't get much grander than this and 18th-century Longueville House in County Cork has been in the same family for three generations.
I can always remember my mother chasing us up the stairs with a wooden spoon telling us to be quiet and we were laughing and giggling.
It was a different way of growing up.
It was a lot of fun.
It's a fantastic example of late Georgian architecture and has been run as a hotel by the O'Callaghan family for over 40 years.
The view is stunning.
You've got these lovely, old tree plantations done to replicate the Battle of Waterloo.
You also look onto the original O'Callaghan home which is called Dromaneen Castle.
So there's an awful lot of history associated with it.
William O'Callaghan and wife, Aisling, are the family's third generation to live at Longueville.
A perfect place to raise their children, We don't pull the whole bush, we just pull the little mange tout, yeah.
My children love growing up here so they appreciate all they have around them.
The sense of space, they can have their animals, roam safely around the place.
There's history at every turn.
This was my husbands late granduncle.
He was an archdeacon and he used to come to Longueville many years ago on his holidays, to hunt.
He obviously had this portrait done of himself which we've inherited.
So he sort of dominates the room a bit.
But Longueville's heritage isn't just limited to the house.
This is a smoke walk.
So the gentlemen, long ago, after dinner used to have a cigar and take a walk up here.
We're got apples over here, about ten different varieties.
Apples have been growing in Ireland for at least 3,000 years.
Even the countries patron saint, St Patrick, is said to have planted a number of apple trees himself.
We produce about 120,000 bottles of cider, thereabouts.
And about 2,000 bottles of apple brandy.
The O'Callaghan's home even has it's own distillery.
I said Ireland was a place where dreams came true.
And who wouldn't want one of those? This is the crush house and the distillery.
And Dan Duggan, who's been here for 35 years is the head distiller.
All those lovely apples from William's orchard get distilled into his very own apple brandy.
Well, that's one way of getting your five-a-day.
It's got that lovely colour.
It takes all the tannins from the oak.
It went in there clear and it comes out like that.
Lovely, rich colour.
It's almost like chocolate.
And does it taste as good? God, it tastes great.
And that's gonna get another year.
That's right.
It'll just be amazing, that.
And you get all the apple aroma's out of it.
That's the real deal.
A lovely house with home grown cider and brandy.
This is living off the land, Irish style.
And I'll drink to that.
Join me after the break for more tales from the emerald isle.
For a moderately-sized island with a small population the Irish are a pretty well travelled race.
And you'll find an Irish bar in the most unusual corners of the globe.
But there's no place like home, So did you know that in 2010, 34.
7 million American's claimed Irish ancestry? And that in the Sates there are seven places named Shamrock and 16 named Dublin.
There's only one Nesbitt though.
From the captivating coastlines to the magnificent mountains, this is a place where dreams can come true.
Whether it's owning your own castle, or living off the land in the idyllic countryside like the Trass family from Tipperary.
Con Trass moved with his family as a boy to Ireland from the Netherlands over 40 years ago.
What started as a small apple farm has now branched out into pears, plums, sweet cherries, strawberries and raspberries.
Well, there's nothing like growing your own business.
My parents were growing fruit in Holland and wanted to grow more.
They had a small farm.
At that time in Holland you really couldn't get new land.
So an awful lot of people left to go to places like Canada, New Zealand, France and Ireland.
They had a look around Ireland a couple of times and liked it and decided to come here.
OK, so this is a picking basket.
You put the apples into it.
It holds holds about 40 or 50 apples And you just put it on to yourself like that and go off and start picking.
When they came here first, they grew tulips and strawberries and peas.
They were kind of mixed farmers for the first while.
Then, over the years You know, the apples were always very popular as were some of the soft fruit and we concentrated more and more on those.
Now practically the whole farm is covered in some sort of fruit.
I think I remember picking when I was about 10 years old.
I used to come home from school and my dad would send me out for an hour or so to be with the pickers and I think I did more talking than picking.
That would make it about 34 years of picking or something like that.
So I've been at it a while.
There's not much more satisfying than when you've got a nice crop of fruit to actually get the chance to pick them yourself.
I find harvesting fruit very therapeutic.
Turn off the phone and just go and concentrate on what's on the plant and pick them, maybe eat an odd one.
It's very enjoyable.
I'm just picking some strawberries for a wedding.
It's a niece of my wife who's getting married tomorrow and she was looking for some very nice strawberries for the champagne.
In this tunnel there's about 6,000 plants and I suppose each plant could give 30 strawberries maybe, something like that.
With the strawberries all coming along nicely, Con's got big apple plans and he's combining them with the Irish love of a good time.
He's holding Ireland's first apple and cider festival at the farm.
And attracting cider producers from all over.
This is our sweeter on and this is out drier one.
Initially you think it's sour.
May I take a couple of bottles? Of course, yeah.
These trees are making next year's flowers now.
If there's too many apples on them they won't make Con hopes that this festival will celebrate the apple and the many ways it is enjoyed and put the bite back into the Irish cider market.
It's going to be a big day.
Full of flavour.
The apple itself, aesthetically, doesn't look amazing but the flavour more than makes up for it.
It's a family affair with good food, good cider and, of course, the obligatory tractor ride.
It's going pretty well.
We've had a good lot of people coming in and still more people coming in.
The car park is more or less full and we're going into our over flow car park.
People seem to be enjoying themselves.
Con is a treasure.
He's such a great guy.
And this is a great reflection on him to invite the whole world to come to his farm with the open door and to look around.
We've had a lovely day.
With the first festival declared a success, life is sweet for the Trass family and The Apple Farm in Tipperary.
Very happy.
It was really good.
Lots of people.
Everyone seemed to be really pleased with the day.
If their happy, I'm happy.
Back in County Offaly and it's time for a house viewing with a difference with estate agent, Helen Cassidy, as I step inside the majestic Cloghan Castle, up for sale for 1.
3 million Euro.
Wow.
So, now we're in the great hall.
We're certainly in a castle.
A pretty impressive room as you can tell.
This would date, we think, from about the 1600s, 1650s.
It was built by? Eoghan O'Madden who was one of our great chiefs.
A great Irish chief.
He had gone on the crusades with his father, which is amazing when you think that he brought back all the ideas about a defensive castle from the crusades, built his own castle and as years went on, these extensions.
They would have dated from Obviously they're younger.
It's very imposing all right.
Great, well, let's have a further look around.
OK, James, these are the spiral staircases.
There was a great game plan here on how they constructed them.
It was always favouring whether the swordsman who constructed the castle was left-handed or right-handed.
So the guys behind you You're attacking them as you're retreating backwards.
There was also If you look here, there's a little trip.
Again, as the person who owns the castle you know where that chip would be and so he would alter his movement to make sure that he could correct.
However the guy behind you is going to get stabbed by your sword because he doesn't know that.
Sly.
Very sly.
This is no two up, two down.
Along with the great hall, you'll get a dining room, drawing room and even a court room.
well, who hasn't wanted one of those? So what is it that attracts people to the idea of buying a place like this? That appeals to them.
Yeah.
It's a sense of safety, of security.
I find, when someone has asked me a lot of information about a castle and then comes to visit, when they're standing in the castle you can feel this strength.
And confidence that comes to people.
Again, it's not a lot of people who come to buy castles, so I'm not selling a castle every day, I wish I was.
But about 3% of the buying population are interested in castles.
Is it the very rich who just have it as a hobby or something to show off or are people actually coming to live here.
People come to live.
Mostly it's people who come to live.
And they're a very determined bunch and they usually have the heart of a lion.
Right.
You're king of your own castle.
It's magic.
It is a magical place.
So, are you tempted? Well, my girls would love it, I think.
Yeah.
They could feel very at home here.
When you think of it, it's a good address for a script to be sent to.
Indeed.
Brilliant.
I'm nearly sold.
Perhaps I just need to meet the outgoing owners before I really make up my mind.
Brian and Elise, lovely to see you.
Oh, perfect, perfect.
Brian and Elise Thompson have called this place home for 40 years.
Time to find out why their selling up.
Why on earth did you end up living in a castle? Well, I was asked that if I would marry him I could come and live in his castle in Ireland so I said yes, How could a girl say no? Of course.
I wanted a place where I could play castles.
Right.
You know.
So I rebuilt the walls and I took 150 truck loads of stones to rebuild the battlements which were blown off in 1595.
And I took it back.
You were in the main guard room dining room.
The restoration of that one room took one man a whole year.
My goodness.
It's interesting that this is the place you chose.
This is the castle you chose to make your home.
Yeah.
What was it about here that you thought, 'Actually, this is where we stay.
' Well, put it this way, you have your friends around you in the dinning room in the main guard.
The candles are lit, the fire is roaring and the atmosphere is fantastic.
My God.
I walk out in the morning and the deer walk across the front park.
It all leads me to the fact that you're now selling.
Can I ask you why you're selling? We need to retire.
Yeah.
We both feel that we've taken it as far as we can.
Now it's for somebody else to do.
You don't live in these things forever.
You know, in the whole history of the castle we were maybe that much.
So, you know you don't own it, you live in it.
And it's time now to go.
And of course, even though you're now leaving it, you're not leaving it completely because you're now part of it's rich history as well.
Yeah.
Very true.
It's very beautiful.
Wanna buy it? So, do you fancy it? Not for everyone the idea of living in a castle but it's a special place.
Brian and Elise have worked here, lived here, lovingly restored this place for 40 years.
They feel it's time for them to move on but the history lived on and they're now part of that history.
And Englishman's home might be his castle, but an Irishman's castle is his home From land to sea, from pastoral pleasures to grand designs, there's a place for everything and everyone in this wonderful land.
A country blessed with stunning scenery, beautiful beaches, lively characters, and fascinating stories to be told.
Hobby horses will always be number one.
I'm James Nesbitt and I've been on a voyage of discovery around my homeland.
This is an island I'm proud to call home.
So many people have a place in their heart for Ireland.
I just feel so extraordinarily lucky to be here.
And who can blame them? So come with me on my journey.
You won't be disappointed.
You can't walk down the road in Ireland without stumbling across a castle, like this gem in Belfast.
400 ft above sea level and with spectacular views.
Trust me.
We love a castle and Ireland is blessed with hundreds of them.
Ruins and crumbling towers, neo-gothic structures and medieval fortresses pepper the landscape.
There's rich history at every turn.
And these are badges of a nation's heritage.
It's no wonder the Irish have a reputation for romance if we get to call places like this home.
This week we'll look at the people who have all claimed a small piece of this beautiful country for themselves.
I wanted a place where I could play castles.
My children love growing up here so they appreciate all they have around them.
And I'll discover the delights of owning a property fit for a king.
So, are you tempted? Well, my girls would love it, I think.
Ireland.
A place where anything is possible, even owning a castle.
So .
.
this is what people who look for castles come to me and expect.
Helen Cassidy runs an agency that specialises in this very particular kind of property.
She sells castles.
People get very passionate about them and you can really feel their hearts are pounding when they arrive and look at a tower house such as this and feel, 'Yes, perhaps it could be mine.
' It's a wonderful address.
My castle, in Ireland.
It's not every estate agent who investigates murder holes.
Essentially you could pour boiling oil and deter anyone who had evil intent coming towards you.
Or clambers down into dungeons.
So I've been requested to take some photos of the stonework.
I'm sure it was a rather grim life it you were imprisoned here.
But that's part of the job for Helen.
I have a huge passion for Irish history and the fact that I can actually make my living hopefully out of selling them is a wonderful thing.
Castles come in all shapes and sizes.
And with ancient Irish history one of invasion and settlement, Helen is kept busy.
This is a 15th-century tower house.
The great hall historically would have been used by the lord and his family.
When you look up at the gallery, here you would have had your poets, your bards, your musicians entertaining the people down here.
I don't think I've ever brought anybody into this room without them going, 'Wow!' With centuries of heritage at her feet We're looking in the region of 750,000 Euro for this property.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
.
.
there's something out there for pretty much everyone.
I deal in dreams.
They want a fantasy to become a reality.
And I hope that the starting point for them is in contacting me and looking at what I have on offer.
Helen's diary is packed with people all wanting their own, rather grand corner of Ireland.
And then, on the third floor, you're looking at your drawing room, dinning room.
Which is really pretty.
OK, so, here is where you were defending you castle from attack.
Isn't it fantastic? Wonderful view.
Yeah.
They say that Cromwell stayed here.
Really.
Well, they say that about very many castle, I guess.
My job is very different.
It's extremely interesting.
I really never no what's going to happen next.
One of the most spectacular castles on Helen's books is found in County Offaly.
14th-century Cloghan Castle is a national historical monument set within 157 acres.
Boasting three private gardens, 80,000 trees and, come the winter floods, a seven-mile-long wildlife sanctuary, this will make someone a pretty unique home.
Hello, James.
You're very welcome to Cloghan Castle.
Thank you.
Lovely to see it.
It's a beautiful place.
But you, of course, sell castles.
Indeed, I do.
Are they dotted all over the place? There are supposed to be about 3,000 castles in Ireland.
Is there much call - Demand for castles.
Demand, yeah.
Yes, there is.
My buyers tend to be, let's say, Americans with connections somehow or other and Irish people as well.
Are they varied the castles? Do they come in all sizes? We think of castles as being similar to this.
Towers, turrets They can be nice and small too.
And they can be nice and cheap.
Really? My cheapest castle is about 75,000 Euro and we'll do a deal on that.
Now, this one here is also for sale.
Indeed.
This is a very important and historic castle, Cloghan Castle.
In terms of being a mystical, real true Irish castle that has seen bloodshed and murder and history and the whole show.
It doesn't get much better than this.
How much is this going for? I'm guiding in the region of 1.
3 million Euro.
Oh, right.
So it's very reasonable.
It's very affordable.
I can see that.
Perhaps you'll give me a show around then.
I certainly can.
Fantastic.
Have you brought your cheque book? Oh, dear.
That'll bounce.
What to see exactly what 1.
3 million Euro get's you? Me too.
So join me later to take a look inside.
The appeal of an Irish heritage is so strong that many visitors spend their trips here exploring their Irish roots.
And whether your ancestors lived in a castle or a cottage, Ireland is a place many are keen to call home.
Homes don't get much grander than this and 18th-century Longueville House in County Cork has been in the same family for three generations.
I can always remember my mother chasing us up the stairs with a wooden spoon telling us to be quiet and we were laughing and giggling.
It was a different way of growing up.
It was a lot of fun.
It's a fantastic example of late Georgian architecture and has been run as a hotel by the O'Callaghan family for over 40 years.
The view is stunning.
You've got these lovely, old tree plantations done to replicate the Battle of Waterloo.
You also look onto the original O'Callaghan home which is called Dromaneen Castle.
So there's an awful lot of history associated with it.
William O'Callaghan and wife, Aisling, are the family's third generation to live at Longueville.
A perfect place to raise their children, We don't pull the whole bush, we just pull the little mange tout, yeah.
My children love growing up here so they appreciate all they have around them.
The sense of space, they can have their animals, roam safely around the place.
There's history at every turn.
This was my husbands late granduncle.
He was an archdeacon and he used to come to Longueville many years ago on his holidays, to hunt.
He obviously had this portrait done of himself which we've inherited.
So he sort of dominates the room a bit.
But Longueville's heritage isn't just limited to the house.
This is a smoke walk.
So the gentlemen, long ago, after dinner used to have a cigar and take a walk up here.
We're got apples over here, about ten different varieties.
Apples have been growing in Ireland for at least 3,000 years.
Even the countries patron saint, St Patrick, is said to have planted a number of apple trees himself.
We produce about 120,000 bottles of cider, thereabouts.
And about 2,000 bottles of apple brandy.
The O'Callaghan's home even has it's own distillery.
I said Ireland was a place where dreams came true.
And who wouldn't want one of those? This is the crush house and the distillery.
And Dan Duggan, who's been here for 35 years is the head distiller.
All those lovely apples from William's orchard get distilled into his very own apple brandy.
Well, that's one way of getting your five-a-day.
It's got that lovely colour.
It takes all the tannins from the oak.
It went in there clear and it comes out like that.
Lovely, rich colour.
It's almost like chocolate.
And does it taste as good? God, it tastes great.
And that's gonna get another year.
That's right.
It'll just be amazing, that.
And you get all the apple aroma's out of it.
That's the real deal.
A lovely house with home grown cider and brandy.
This is living off the land, Irish style.
And I'll drink to that.
Join me after the break for more tales from the emerald isle.
For a moderately-sized island with a small population the Irish are a pretty well travelled race.
And you'll find an Irish bar in the most unusual corners of the globe.
But there's no place like home, So did you know that in 2010, 34.
7 million American's claimed Irish ancestry? And that in the Sates there are seven places named Shamrock and 16 named Dublin.
There's only one Nesbitt though.
From the captivating coastlines to the magnificent mountains, this is a place where dreams can come true.
Whether it's owning your own castle, or living off the land in the idyllic countryside like the Trass family from Tipperary.
Con Trass moved with his family as a boy to Ireland from the Netherlands over 40 years ago.
What started as a small apple farm has now branched out into pears, plums, sweet cherries, strawberries and raspberries.
Well, there's nothing like growing your own business.
My parents were growing fruit in Holland and wanted to grow more.
They had a small farm.
At that time in Holland you really couldn't get new land.
So an awful lot of people left to go to places like Canada, New Zealand, France and Ireland.
They had a look around Ireland a couple of times and liked it and decided to come here.
OK, so this is a picking basket.
You put the apples into it.
It holds holds about 40 or 50 apples And you just put it on to yourself like that and go off and start picking.
When they came here first, they grew tulips and strawberries and peas.
They were kind of mixed farmers for the first while.
Then, over the years You know, the apples were always very popular as were some of the soft fruit and we concentrated more and more on those.
Now practically the whole farm is covered in some sort of fruit.
I think I remember picking when I was about 10 years old.
I used to come home from school and my dad would send me out for an hour or so to be with the pickers and I think I did more talking than picking.
That would make it about 34 years of picking or something like that.
So I've been at it a while.
There's not much more satisfying than when you've got a nice crop of fruit to actually get the chance to pick them yourself.
I find harvesting fruit very therapeutic.
Turn off the phone and just go and concentrate on what's on the plant and pick them, maybe eat an odd one.
It's very enjoyable.
I'm just picking some strawberries for a wedding.
It's a niece of my wife who's getting married tomorrow and she was looking for some very nice strawberries for the champagne.
In this tunnel there's about 6,000 plants and I suppose each plant could give 30 strawberries maybe, something like that.
With the strawberries all coming along nicely, Con's got big apple plans and he's combining them with the Irish love of a good time.
He's holding Ireland's first apple and cider festival at the farm.
And attracting cider producers from all over.
This is our sweeter on and this is out drier one.
Initially you think it's sour.
May I take a couple of bottles? Of course, yeah.
These trees are making next year's flowers now.
If there's too many apples on them they won't make Con hopes that this festival will celebrate the apple and the many ways it is enjoyed and put the bite back into the Irish cider market.
It's going to be a big day.
Full of flavour.
The apple itself, aesthetically, doesn't look amazing but the flavour more than makes up for it.
It's a family affair with good food, good cider and, of course, the obligatory tractor ride.
It's going pretty well.
We've had a good lot of people coming in and still more people coming in.
The car park is more or less full and we're going into our over flow car park.
People seem to be enjoying themselves.
Con is a treasure.
He's such a great guy.
And this is a great reflection on him to invite the whole world to come to his farm with the open door and to look around.
We've had a lovely day.
With the first festival declared a success, life is sweet for the Trass family and The Apple Farm in Tipperary.
Very happy.
It was really good.
Lots of people.
Everyone seemed to be really pleased with the day.
If their happy, I'm happy.
Back in County Offaly and it's time for a house viewing with a difference with estate agent, Helen Cassidy, as I step inside the majestic Cloghan Castle, up for sale for 1.
3 million Euro.
Wow.
So, now we're in the great hall.
We're certainly in a castle.
A pretty impressive room as you can tell.
This would date, we think, from about the 1600s, 1650s.
It was built by? Eoghan O'Madden who was one of our great chiefs.
A great Irish chief.
He had gone on the crusades with his father, which is amazing when you think that he brought back all the ideas about a defensive castle from the crusades, built his own castle and as years went on, these extensions.
They would have dated from Obviously they're younger.
It's very imposing all right.
Great, well, let's have a further look around.
OK, James, these are the spiral staircases.
There was a great game plan here on how they constructed them.
It was always favouring whether the swordsman who constructed the castle was left-handed or right-handed.
So the guys behind you You're attacking them as you're retreating backwards.
There was also If you look here, there's a little trip.
Again, as the person who owns the castle you know where that chip would be and so he would alter his movement to make sure that he could correct.
However the guy behind you is going to get stabbed by your sword because he doesn't know that.
Sly.
Very sly.
This is no two up, two down.
Along with the great hall, you'll get a dining room, drawing room and even a court room.
well, who hasn't wanted one of those? So what is it that attracts people to the idea of buying a place like this? That appeals to them.
Yeah.
It's a sense of safety, of security.
I find, when someone has asked me a lot of information about a castle and then comes to visit, when they're standing in the castle you can feel this strength.
And confidence that comes to people.
Again, it's not a lot of people who come to buy castles, so I'm not selling a castle every day, I wish I was.
But about 3% of the buying population are interested in castles.
Is it the very rich who just have it as a hobby or something to show off or are people actually coming to live here.
People come to live.
Mostly it's people who come to live.
And they're a very determined bunch and they usually have the heart of a lion.
Right.
You're king of your own castle.
It's magic.
It is a magical place.
So, are you tempted? Well, my girls would love it, I think.
Yeah.
They could feel very at home here.
When you think of it, it's a good address for a script to be sent to.
Indeed.
Brilliant.
I'm nearly sold.
Perhaps I just need to meet the outgoing owners before I really make up my mind.
Brian and Elise, lovely to see you.
Oh, perfect, perfect.
Brian and Elise Thompson have called this place home for 40 years.
Time to find out why their selling up.
Why on earth did you end up living in a castle? Well, I was asked that if I would marry him I could come and live in his castle in Ireland so I said yes, How could a girl say no? Of course.
I wanted a place where I could play castles.
Right.
You know.
So I rebuilt the walls and I took 150 truck loads of stones to rebuild the battlements which were blown off in 1595.
And I took it back.
You were in the main guard room dining room.
The restoration of that one room took one man a whole year.
My goodness.
It's interesting that this is the place you chose.
This is the castle you chose to make your home.
Yeah.
What was it about here that you thought, 'Actually, this is where we stay.
' Well, put it this way, you have your friends around you in the dinning room in the main guard.
The candles are lit, the fire is roaring and the atmosphere is fantastic.
My God.
I walk out in the morning and the deer walk across the front park.
It all leads me to the fact that you're now selling.
Can I ask you why you're selling? We need to retire.
Yeah.
We both feel that we've taken it as far as we can.
Now it's for somebody else to do.
You don't live in these things forever.
You know, in the whole history of the castle we were maybe that much.
So, you know you don't own it, you live in it.
And it's time now to go.
And of course, even though you're now leaving it, you're not leaving it completely because you're now part of it's rich history as well.
Yeah.
Very true.
It's very beautiful.
Wanna buy it? So, do you fancy it? Not for everyone the idea of living in a castle but it's a special place.
Brian and Elise have worked here, lived here, lovingly restored this place for 40 years.
They feel it's time for them to move on but the history lived on and they're now part of that history.
And Englishman's home might be his castle, but an Irishman's castle is his home From land to sea, from pastoral pleasures to grand designs, there's a place for everything and everyone in this wonderful land.