Drawbridge Clangs Shut On Irons' Party Plans
by Jane Slade, Sunday Telegraph (London)
August 29, 1999
AFTER investing pounds 1 million and a year's hard labour, Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons has failed to restore his Irish castle in time for a millennium house-warming party.
The actor, best known for his role in Brideshead Revisited, was hoping to throw "the mother of all Irish parties" at Kilcoe Castle in West Cork to show off his handiwork.
"I think it is highly unlikely there will be a party," confirmed his agent, Ann Hutton. "When I was there a month ago there weren't even any floorboards. I don't think it will be ready to receive guests because there aren't any kitchens either. I think Jeremy has realised his one-year project is now going to take three." Irons and his wife, the Irish-born actress Sinead Cusack, bought the 16th century castle two years ago for pounds 150,000 and were planning party invites for local celebrities, including Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson, Lord Puttnam, and Lord Lloyd-Webber.
Irons took a year off acting in the hope of turning the ruin into a family retreat and a holiday home for deprived youngsters. Now he has to return to work. "But as soon as he finishes a job he dashes back to the castle," said Ms Hutton. Indeed, as Miss Cusack recently confided to Mandrake: "Jeremy has immersed himself in this. He seems to spend most of his time on top of a ladder."