In the Irish county of Offaly town of Birr stands the sizable castle known as Birr Castle. The 7th Earl of Rosse and his family reside there, so the residential areas of the castle are off-limits to visitors. However, the grounds of demesne and gardens are open to everyone, and they include a science museum, a café, a reflecting telescope that was the biggest in the world for many years, and a modern radio telescope. Since 1170, there has been a castle on the property, and the O-Carroll family reigned from here over the region known as Ely O-Carroll from the 14th to the 17th century. The castle was given to younger son William of Sir Laurence Parsons upon the passing of both he and his elder son Richard. William was held in Birr for fifteen months by Catholic forces during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The castle was renovated by Laurence, son of William, a baronet from 1677, after the American Civil War. In the early 19th century, a later descendant—Laurence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse—also worked on some remodeling and raised and Gothicized the castle. The large telescope at Birr was built by his son, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, who was also in charge of its construction. When it was finished in 1845, it was the biggest telescope ever built. It could see farther into space and capture more light than any other telescope could. As a result, Birr became a center for astronomical observations, and travelers from all over the world began to stop by the observatory [Information and Image Credit : Birr_Castle, Wikipedia] [Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birr_Castle ] [Image : Birr Castle ; Wikipedia-Image-Author : Birr Castle Demesne] [Image Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International; (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en ] [Wikipedia-Image-Source-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birr_Castle_Offaly.jpg ] #Castles#History
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Monuments and Architecture
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