Muckross House Killarney Ireland Postcard

This postcard features Muckross House in Killarney Ireland. Muckross House is a mansion designed in by the British architect, William Burn, built in 1843 for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife, the watercolourist Mary Balfour Herbert. It was built in the Tudor style and it had 65 rooms. In the 1850s, extensive improvements were made in preparation for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. It is said that the cost for this was a contributory factor in the financial difficulties suffered by the Herbert family who eventually sold the estate. Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun bought the estate . He wanted to preserve the dramatic landscape and did not live in the house himself, but opted to rent it out to wealthy groups as a hunting lodge. In August 1911, not long before the First World War, Muckross House and its demesne was bought by William Bowers Bourn, a wealthy Californian mining magnate. They gave it to their daughter Victoria and her husband Arthur Rose Vincent as a wedding present. The couple lived there until Victoria's death from pneumonia in 1929. In 1932 her parents Mr and Mrs Bournes and their son-in-law Arthur Vincent decided to present Muckross House and its 11,000 acre estate to the Irish nation. Being called the ″Bourne-Vincent Memorial Park″, it became the first National Park in the Republic of Ireland and formed the basis of present-day Killarney National Park. In later years, the park was substantially expanded by the purchase of land from the former Earl of Kenmare's estate. Enjoy your new Muckross House Killarney Ireland Postcard!