Seat of the Butler family, from 1172 until 1935, (The Butlers were a Norman family, who came to Ireland with the Norman invasion, and who changed their name to Butler from Walter in 1185). Everything was auctioned off in 1935, the result of the financial necessity of the fading fortune of the Butler family. In 1967 the castle Restoration Comittee under James Butler, the 24th Earl of Ormonde, set out to restore the castle. It is now open to the public.