Malahide Castle sits about nine miles (14 kilometers) north of central Dublin. The Talbot family held the estate from 1185, when Richard Talbot received the lands and harbour of Malahide, until 1976. The one break came in 1649, when Oliver Cromwell granted it to Miles Corbet. The Talbots regained it in 1660. The oldest parts of the castle date to the twelfth century, and the Great Hall is famously Gothic.
In the 1920s the private papers of James Boswell were discovered in the castle. In 1975 Rose Talbot ceded it to the Irish State to pay inheritance taxes.
Today the castle is open for guided tours with a fee. The 267-acre demesne is a regional park with free public access. It holds the Talbot Botanic Gardens, a walled garden with seven glasshouses, and a cricket club that hosts international fixtures.
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