The Burning of Castleshane

Just at the end of the War of Independence, Castleshane, a very imposing mansion burned down. By accident or deliberately is not known for certain. However for the young Leslie children of Glass-lough fame there was an upside, as Anita Leslie tells us; Occasionally we were driven to play with seven-year-old Oriel Scudamore at Castle-Shane, a Victorian-Gothic house lying deep in its forest, five miles away. One morning at nursery breakfast the news reached us that Castle-Shane was burning down. The grown-ups hurried around looking grim and in the afternoon we went to see the smoking ruin. Oriel's teer-streaked mother was directing firemen-and-police to search for her jewellery in the ashes. Charles II's prayer book had been burned with other precious volumes in the library, and a pet Pekinese had succumbed. We watched the activities unmoved. The burning happened to suit our book, for Oriel and her governess came to stay with us at Castle Leslie and she was dressed in my clothes until her mother could purchase more Children’s perspective on rebellion and civil war is not what you might imagine is it?

For more on Castleshane see Master Liam O'Connor's site https://www.castleshanehistory.ie/