Irish Castles And Legends

Legend has it that hundreds of years ago King Lir lived in the castle on lake Deravarragh with his wife Eva and his four children Aodh, Fiachra, Fionnoula and Conn. When King Lir's wife died he married Aoife. She was very jealous of Lir’s love for his children and one day she took them to Lake Deravarragh near the castle and using her magic powers she turned them into swans for 900 years. Aoife told King Lir that the children had drowned, but when he went to the lake to mourne the children one of the swans spoke to Lir, she told him that she was Fionnoula and what their evil stepmother Aoife had done.

They spent 300 years on Lake Deravarragh before going to sea where they spent the remaining 600 of the spell. When the spell was over they turned back into humans and died. A monk found them and buried them together.

After the death of his first wife in 1731 Robert Rochfort married Mary Molesworth aged sixteen , the daughter of the third Viscount Molesworth, in 1736. Initially they lived at Gaulstown House in Mullingar with their children. Robert, however, spent very little time at Gaulstown and gradually they became estranged. Just eight years after their marriage Robert charged Mary with committing adultery with his brother Arthur Rochfort. He imprisoned her alone at Gaulstown for eighteen years while he went to live at Belvedere. He also built the jealous wall which obscured his view of Tudenham park where his brother George lived as he was jealous of the palatial house.

In 1774, upon his death, his son George Augustus Rochfort 2nd Earl of Belvedere released his mother from her captivity. The tragic story of the trial and imprisonment of Mary was one of the great social scandals of 18th-century Ireland.