An exceptional hotel & asteroid discoveries

The impressive Markree Castle Hotel stands on land that was originally controlled by the McDonagh clan. After the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland, the lands were granted to Edward Cooper after he defeated the O’Brien clan in 1663 and ended up marrying Conor O’Brien’s widow Marie Rua. Cooper and his descendants went on to become some of the biggest landowners in Ireland. Markree was remodeled in 1802 by the famous architect Francis Johnson and an impressive observatory was built in 1830 which at the time had the largest refractor lens in the world. An asteroid called Metis was also discovered in 1848 and was the first and only asteroid discovered in Ireland up until 2008. During the Irish Civil War 1921-1922, considerable damage was done to the castle and it was left virtually unused up to 1947. In the 1980s, Charles and Mary Cooper completely renovated the derelict building into an exclusive hotel. Legendary singer Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter stayed here in 1990. The hotel was sold in 2015 to the Corscadden Family, a renowned hotelier family who added it to their collection of Romantic Castles of Ireland.