37 owners (so far) including Eric Clapton

Barberstown Castle was built around c.1500 on the site of an earlier 13th-century Norman castle built by Nicholas Barby. Over the next 800 years, records show ownership of at least 37 different families. These include William Sutton(1630), Lord Kingstown (1689), Bartholomew Van Homreigh, the Lord Mayor of Dublin (1703), and Mr. Hugh Barton (1830), the wine merchant who constructed the nearby K Club. It was converted into a hotel by Nora Devlin in 1971 and Eric Clapton, the world-famous guitarist, purchased the property in 1979. The current owner and occupant, Ken Healy, purchased the castle in 1987 and has recently renovated the place into an incredible 59-bedroom 4* hotel. It is now also a member of Ireland’s exclusive Blue Book of Country House Hotels & Restaurants. Renovations in 1996 revealed a previously undiscovered tunnel that links the castle to the nearby church in Straffan which was probably used during the times of the Penal Laws.