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The actor and his wife show us around Emmel Castle, where they have lived for 35 years
Actor Patrick Bergin shows The Irish Times around Emmel Castle in Co Offaly, his home of 35 years. Video: Bryan O'Brien Editor: Eoin Ronaynein Sleeping with the Enemy.
His role as the coercive and creepy stalker husband to Roberts, then on the cusp of her megawatt fame, deservedly remains a classic. Very shortly after, he bought Emmel Castle in Co“It’s a big place for two of us, and we are not getting younger,” Goldin says.
“We would like to be able to walk to a shop. Everything is a drive here. The nearest restaurant is in Nenagh. We have been very happy here, but it needs young people.
” Emmel is indeed a large property, although if you wanted a quick snack, the Barack Obama Plaza is much closer to it than Nenagh. For a start, Emmel Castle is set on 20 acres, with a number of outbuildings with slate roofs. There is also a courtyard, a bellcote and a walled garden. A flight of stone steps leads up to the front door, which Bergin throws open to welcome us in suitably dramatic manner.
There is a big fire roaring in the drawingroom where we enter, with some of Bergin’s many awards and pieces of his acting memorabilia on display. At one point in the visit he shows us a toy bow and arrow, still with its original packaging, with a picture featuring himself. It was merchandise that tied in with the 1991 movie Robin Hood,A long road to Ireland: ‘The Irish are very secretive.
They don’t tell you stuff’Emmel Castle, Emmel, Cloughjordan, Co Offaly Patrick Bergin with toy bow and arrow, merchandise from the film Robin Hood. Photograph: Bryan O’BrienThe living quarters at Emmel are divided between a 15th-century tower house and an adjoining 17th-century period house. The tower house was originally built by a member of the O’Carroll clan.
“It was certainly here when Cromwell came, in 1640,” Bergin says. There’s a well-worn oak spiral staircase that winds up to the battlements, nearly 30m above. We climb to the top, grasping the rope railing as the stairs get ever narrower and steeper. From up there, you can reportedly see five counties: Offaly, Limerick, Tipperary, Clare and Galway.
Robin Hood would definitely be able to see his enemies coming from all directions. The tower house part of the property has several enormous rooms, some with beams and rafters. One is called the music room; it contains some of Bergin’s extensive guitar collection, a piano and several other instruments, and is where they sometimes invite musician friends for a session.
“We love having people over,” Goldin says. There’s a statue of Cúchulainn in another room, which Bergin draws our attention to.
“It was the day Shane MacGowan died and Ray D’Arcy was on the radio talking about him, and playing some of his songs. ” Bergin was in his car, listening to the radio at the time.
“And one of the songs he played was about Cúchulainn . And I came up the steps and came in the door and I heard something fall, and it was that statue of Cúchulainn, the day Shane MacGowan died. ” There is also a light-filled room used as an art studio. Both Bergin and Goldin use this room.
They both like to paint. They also have plans to co-write a book of poetry together and hope to develop a line of jewellery. Goldin shows me two small paintings of angels she did, dressed in gold and green respectively, after seeing them in a kind of vision while in the US.
“I totally believe in angels,” she says. “And I saw these two angels in Malibu. One is called Harmony. She was dressed in gold, and the other angel was Hope, and she was dressed in green.
I talk to them every night. For 45 years I had been talking to the four archangels, before these two came along into my life. And I haven’t missed one night since. Just before I go to sleep, I talk to them.
There are six of them now. You never feel alone when you believe in angels. ” There are six bedrooms, but they only use three of them. A favourite room for the couple is what Bergin refers to as the green room, in a nod to the name given to the backstage relaxation space actors spend time in when not performing.
It’s a formal room with red velvet curtains, green walls and several couches and armchairs.
“This is my favourite room,” Goldin says, sinking into one of the sofas. “Like any green room around the world, it’s a place to relax,” Bergin says. There is what Bergin calls the prayer room, which looks like a kind of miniature chapel, and is full of religious iconography, statues and rosaries.
“When people come to visit, we ask them all to come in here,” Goldin says. There’s also a boot room, a plant room, a utility room, a pantry, at least two more livingrooms, and so many other rooms for random activities that I lose track. Bergin’s trademark trilby hats are present in every room. The large kitchen is on the ground level, with a smaller dining area, which they use every day.
“Even though it’s a big building, it feels very much a home,” Goldin says. They are in the unenviable process of starting to pack up more than three decades’ worth of their belongings; boxes of which have already filled the huge top room of the tower.
“Look,” Bergin says. We are downstairs, close to the original stone-arch entrance to what was then the only building on site – the Tower House. He tells me to stand at one side of a room, and then goes around a corner, out of sight. There is a circular opening carved out of the wall, and when I look into it, there is Bergin’s eye, staring back at me.
“The spy hole,” he explains. They both eagerly follow the news, or else they don’t like silence. Large televisions are on in at least four of the rooms we go into.
“There’s only the two of us rattling round here, so we like to have a bit of noise going on in the background,” Goldin says, as she switches one off. Formal dinners are held in the room they call the guard room. It’s like a medieval banqueting hall, with exposed stone walls, a stone flagged floor, a huge grate, and a long table that seats 20 and came with the castle when Bergin bought it.
A suit made of chain mail hangs from the ceiling, and candle sconces and holders are scattered around. Will they be including some of the furniture with the sale?
“We haven’t thought about that yet,” Goldin says. “Quite possibly. ” This room has an iron gate, which, should they wish, they can lock.
“My grandchildren call this room the dungeon,” Goldin says cheerfully. They are selling up as the place is now too large for them, and hope to make a move to somewhere between “Skerries and Greystones”, where both their families live. Emmel Castle, which extends to 663sq m and is Ber exempt, is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald, guiding €995,000. Rosita Boland is Senior Features Writer with The Irish Times.
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