irish writer oliver street john gogarty

Surgeon and senator, poet, playwright and pilot, Oliver St. John Gogarty was a many-faceted man, a true native son of the city of Georgian squares and Palladian architectrue which he considered to be one of the most beautiful in Europe. 'Dublin. Dublin of the vistas', he described it.

There are two other houses in Galway associated with Oliver St. John Gogarty, Kylemore House on the shores of Kylemore Lake which they owned and in which the family often stayed, and Dunguaire Castle, a sixteenth-century tower house complete with bawn on the edge of Kinvara Bay. Built on the site of the ancient royal seat of a seventh-century king of Connaught, Guaire Aidhneach the tower passed into the ownership in the seventeenth century of the Martyn family, one of whose descendants was Edward Martyn of Tulira Castle.

Though Gogarty's son, Oliver, says his father bought Dunguaire because he always wanted to buy what he say and liked, it has also been suggested that he acquired it to save it from demolition. Some years after the family ceased to own it the castle was renovated and it is now open to visitors.