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Castle-skeagh was granted to Michael Balfour, Lord Balfour of Burleigh from Fife, Scotland, by King James I in the Plantation of Ulster. He sold his lands in Fermanagh to his younger brother James, Lord Balfour of Glenawley in 1615. In 1618/19 Captain Nicholas Pynnar reported that Balfour had begun his building at Castle-skeagh. The village of Lisnaskea developed around it. The castle was altered in 1652 and damaged in 1689. The last person to possess and inhabit the Castle was James Haire (1737-1833) who leased the castle from John Creighton, Earl Erne. James Haire and his family ceased to occupy the castle after it was destroyed by an arson-based fire in 1803. His mother, Phoebe Haire, was killed by the fire. It is believed that the perpetrator of the fire was a member of the Maguire clan. Major conservation and restoration was undertaken in the 1960s and further conservation work was completed in the late 1990s.
Evidence of an earlier ringfort indicates the area had been inhabited from very early times. In Castle Balfour Demesne, slight surface evidence for a fosse between two banks was revealed after excavation to have been 2m deep. Attempts to find the outer fosse of a bivallate ringfort revealed ‘no distinct, steep edges’ contrasting with the steeply cut inner fosse. Radiocarbon dates of 359-428 AD were found from the ringfort at Castle Balfour.
Castle Balfour was a long, rectangular three storey building, on a north–south axis, the main block being 26m by 8m. It had a square wing to the east and west and a later rectangular block on the northern end. It has the style of a Scottish castle and the building is thought to be the work of Lowland Scots masons. The surviving castle is in a T plan with an entrance with gun-loops. The castle has vaulted rooms and a kitchen with fireplace and oven on the ground floor, main dwelling rooms on the first floor and corbelled turrets with gun slits.
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.