Huntington Castle is a family home with the presence of spirits, a temple dedicated to a goddess, and a place of meditation.
A visit to Huntington Castle, in County Carlow, the ancestral home of the Durdin-Robertson family, a centre for meditation and study and a meeting place for druids, spiritualists, occultists and students of meditation.
The Durdin-Robertsons have lived at the 17th century Huntington Castle in Clonegal, on the Carlow-Wexford border for generations.
Over dinner, Lawrence Durdin-Robertson recounts some of the history of Huntington Castle, the ancient seat of the Esmonde family, and how it passed by marriage to the Durdin family. In 1880, Helen, the Durdin heiress, married Herbert Robertson.
All of the Durdin-Robertson family have an interest in the psychic world and are extremely comfortable living alongside the castle ghosts.
Nobody could not believe in phenomena if they lived here, because we have so much.
The Castle site was previously occupied by an abbey built in the 13th, and Lawrence’s sister Olivia has seen ghosts of Franciscan Monks. Olivia is a medium and studied at the College of Psychic Studies in London under the medium Douglas Johnson. Lawrence and Olivia's nephew and heir to the Castle, David Durdin Robertson, is also no stranger to apparitions.
There’s no other thing which explains, I mean it’s not a question of light or shadow because the people are there.
Lawrence is writing a book on the deities of the world and while his beliefs are polytheistic, his favourite deity is the Greek goddess Isis and there is a temple dedicated to her in a secluded corner of the castle. The temple was built by his grandmother in 1907 initially as an Anglo-catholic chapel but in the early 1960s, it broadened its scope to include all that is best from every religion.
Any religion will find a welcome here provided of course that it is ethical and good.
For Olivia, spiritualism supplies the answers about the nature of man and she holds seances to listen to spirits and the abbey provides the setting. During a sitting, she connects with two spirits, a woman and a Franciscan Monk.
This episode of 'Agenda' was broadcast on 11 July 1973. The reporter is Janet Moody.
