Avondale: Parnell's House and the Trees the State Planted

Avondale, on the River Avonmore near Rathdrum, was built in 1777 for Samuel Hayes, a barrister who wrote a book on Irish forestry and planted many thousands of trees on the estate. It passed to the Parnells, and Charles Stewart Parnell was born in the house in 1846; after his death in 1891 the estate was sold to a Dublin butcher who felled most of the trees to recoup his investment. The government bought it in 1904, renewed the woodlands and used the house as a forestry school, planting a great variety of trees — the most successful being conifers from the Pacific coast of North America, so the grounds now hold giant redwoods from California and Sitka spruce from British Columbia. Beyond the Trees Avondale, the treetop walk, opened in 2022, and the house reopened to visitors in 2023.