Four centuries of Barons Louth
The Plunketts of Louth Hall
The Plunketts came over with the Anglo-Norman wave under Henry II — Sir Hugh de Plunkett the original. A branch settled at Tallanstown by the late 1400s. In 1541 Henry VIII created Oliver Plunkett the first Baron Louth, and the family held the barony from then until the 20th century. The original tower house at Louth Hall was 14th century; the big Georgian wrap-around went up around 1760; Richard Johnston added a ballroom with a bow window and inserted Gothic windows into the old tower in 1805. The 14th Baron sold most of the estate after the 1903 Wyndham Act, the family eventually retreating to Jersey, and the house was destroyed by fire in 2000. The shell still stands at the edge of the village. A landlord's house outliving its landlord, slowly.
A garden that fell asleep for a century
Knockabbey water gardens
Knockabbey Castle started as a tower house in 1399, defending the north-west corner of the Pale. Georgian and Gothic wings followed. The water gardens in the thirty-acre demesne are reckoned among the most important examples of their date in Ireland — eleventh-century origins, layered through every century since, and entirely overgrown by the late 20th century. Cyril O'Brien bought the place in 1998 and started a long restoration with help from the Great Gardens of Ireland Restoration Fund. The tulip tree in the small arboretum is one of the largest in the country. The gardens open seasonally — check before you drive out.
Older history in the parish
The motte and the standing stones
Long before the Plunketts, this stretch of the Glyde valley was lived in. The Record of Monuments and Places notes the ruins of a motte-and-bailey castle in the Louth Hall townland — earlier still than the tower — and a scatter of standing stones and enclosures across the surrounding townlands of Lisrenny, Mansfieldstown and Reaghstown. The medieval landlords built on top of older ground. The pattern of the parish is older than any wall in it.
The trophy in the community hall
Tidy Towns 2010
Tallanstown won the National Tidy Towns competition in 2010 — the small-village category that pits one stretch of road, one pub, one church and one community hall against every other parish in the country. The trophy is on display in the old national school of 1840, now the community hall. The village earned it by mowing verges, painting railings, planting tubs and arguing politely with the council for two decades. Mention it in the pub if you want a long answer.