The Irish Times

Killua Castle, a gaunt ruin outside Clonmellon, Co Westmeath, lay abandoned - then Allen and Lorena Krause came from Mexico (via London) to rescue it. Why? "This is the project of my life," says London-based banker Allen Krause of Killua Castle and its restoration. Then he qualifies his remark by admitting the work could yet take several lifetimes, so vast is the challenge posed by Killua. An enormous, gaunt ruin sited on undulating ground outside Clonmellon, Co Westmeath, the original house was built in the mid-1780s for the Chapman family. Cousins of Sir Walter Raleigh, they had first settled in Ireland thanks to his patronage, an act later commemorated by the erection in 1834 of an obelisk to Raleigh that still stands in the old demesne.