The Bellinghams and the burning
In the autumn of 1689, James II’s army burned this house to the ground. The punishment was aimed at its owner, Colonel Thomas Bellingham, who had thrown in his lot with William of Orange and acted as a guide for William’s army on the march south from Dundalk towards the Boyne. William won that battle the following July. Local memory holds that his soldiers camped in the castle grounds the night before.
The Bellinghams had only recently arrived. Henry Bellingham, a cornet in the Civil War army, bought the lands of Gernonstown around 1660 from a fellow soldier who had been granted them in lieu of unpaid wages – a purchase later confirmed by Charles II. The family did well out of Louth. A Bellingham held a parliamentary seat in the county for the best part of a century, a baronetcy followed in 1796, and the village that grew up around the estate took the family name: Castlebellingham.
From ruin to battlements
What you see today is not the house Thomas Bellingham lost. The rebuilt residence was a plain country house; a third storey went on in 1798, and around 1820 it was given the castellated dress it wears now – crenellated parapet, square corner turrets, an octagonal bartizan and a three-storey bow on the south front. The battlements are early 19th-century fashion, not medieval defence. It is a Georgian house in fancy dress, and none the worse for it.
The family held on until the late 1950s, longer than most of their neighbours managed.
Hotel, decline and restoration
The castle’s later life has been uneven. It was sold out of the family, converted into a hotel, and ran as one for around 13 years before being sold again in 1967 with 17 acres. A long fallow spell followed. In 2012 the Corscadden family, who run several castle venues in Ireland, bought it and put serious money into the fabric. The village of Castlebellingham has seen some of that revival too.
Today the castle is the centrepiece of a 17-acre estate on the banks of the River Glyde, with a weir, a man-made island reached by footbridges, mature trees and formal lawns. There are 28 en-suite bedrooms – 19 in the castle, nine in the converted boathouse.
What a visitor can actually do
Here is the honest part. Bellingham Castle is not a day-trip attraction. There are no tours, no ticket desk, no tea room open to passers-by, and the gates are not thrown open for a wander round the grounds. The business is exclusive-use hire: one wedding or event at a time, with the run of the castle and the estate going to the party who booked it. The venue has taken awards for exactly that, named castle wedding venue of the year in 2024.
You can sometimes book a room for an overnight stay on a night with no event on, and if you want to see inside, that is the way in. Check directly and well ahead, because availability bends around the events calendar. Prices sit at the upper end and shift with the season, so treat any figure you find online as a starting point rather than a quote.
If you are only passing, the view from the public road and the village around it are as much as you will get. Worth knowing before you drive out of your way.
Getting there
Castlebellingham sits just off the M1 in Co Louth, roughly midway between Drogheda and Dundalk, about 50 minutes from both Dublin and Belfast. Ardee and its tower house are a short run inland to the west, and the harbour and cliff walk at Clogherhead are down on the coast to the south.
If the castle is the whole reason for the trip, confirm your booking before you set out. With only one event on at a time and no public access on event days, an unannounced visit gets you no further than the avenue gates.