Malahide Castle is set on 250 acres of park land in the pretty seaside town of Malahide, Co. Dublin. It was both a fortress and a private home for nearly eight hundred years. The Talbot family lived there from 1185 until 1973, when the last Lord Talbot died. The house is furnished with beautiful period furniture together with an extensive collection of Irish portrait paintings, mainly from the National Gallery. The history of the Talbot family is recorded in the Great Hall, with portraits of generations of the family telling their own story of Ireland's stormy history. One of the more poignant legends concerns the morning of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when fourteen members of the family breakfasted together in this room, never to return, as all were dead by nightfall. Reference: http://www.malahidecastle.com/malahidecastle/default.asp