From the Long Gallery windows may be seen the two mile vista to the Conolly Folly or obelisk (restored by the Irish Gerogian Society in 1960 and ,donated by Mrs Rose Saul Zalles of Washington). It is 140 feet high and was b;uilt to Richard Castle's designs. It is a monument to Speaker Conolly and was paid for by his widow. Its construction created employment during the severe winter of 1739. In 1740, Mary Jones wrote:

My sister is building an obleix to answer a vistow from the bake of Castletown House; it will cost her three or four hundred pounds at least, but I believe more. I really wonder how she can dow so much, and live as she duse.

The Conolly family (later Conolly-Carew) continued to live at Castletown until 1965. The house and land was sold, and houses were built on part of the estate and in the walled garden. The house was rescued by the Hon. Desmond Guinness, President of the Irish Georgian Society, when he bought it in 1967. In that year restoration work began and the house was opened to the public. In 1979 the house was given to the Castletown Foundation, a charitable foundation, which was established to own and maintain the house. Gradually the Foundation is attempting to restore Castletown and to find suitable eighteenth-centtiry furniture and pictures to display there. Major restoration work must be carried out on the stonework of the cornice and balustrade on the main part of the house. This enormously expensive project is essential if the house is to survive. Funds are needed to buy back the parkland that surrounds the house and to preserve for future generations one of the most important houses in Ireland and one of significance in Europe's architectural heritage.

All text copyright of Dr. Paul Caffrey. Copies of the guidebook are available from Dr. Caffrey at caffreyp@ncad.ie