Kevin Sweeney

The stone texture sheet is generated from a photo. I got the footprint from the OS map and the basic structure from drone footage I found on youtube. I drew the building in Inkscape, the free drawing app, printed out the card parts and cut them by hand, applied the cover sheets and assembled them. The slates are from Scalesenes. It would fit in nicely on a Co Antrim layout.

Go raibh maith agat, a Phádraig. It is a wonderful building. The moment I saw a photo of it, I knew I had to make it.

I got distracted from modelling for the last 6 weeks, I've been investing a lot of my time trying to learn to speak Irish. But I'm getting back to model making again. I've nearly finished a model of Galgorm Castle, just outside Ballymena, which is a beautiful Jacobean house. Built in 1618. A rare survivor from that period.

I was really impressed with the lego castles. It's been many years since I was at Bunratty Castle, I might just take a trip down there and do a photo survey. I was looking at the possibility of getting Irish medieval figurines which seem to be available in 1 72 scale. So that might be the scale to do it in. It would look good with some soldiers on the battlements.

Making progress with King House, but got diverted twice in the last month, which has slowed it down. First I fell off my bicycle and hurt my hand which stopped all work for two weeks. I also got distracted when I found the website Lego Castles by Bob Carney and decided to have a go at making a castle. I'm almost finished making Fiddaun Castle which is south of Gort. If anyone fancies having a go at modelling a castle the websites has plans and drawings of 17 different Irish castles. I'm toying with the idea of building Bunratty Castle in OO scale. It would make a big impressive model in the that scale.

Making good progress with King House. It's interesting to compare its size to Ormond Castle, they were built 170 years apart. In that time the housing aspirations of the Irish aristocracy had certainly grown. And King House is a modest building compared to something like Castletown, in Kildare. Ironic that all of this opulence was being funded by the labour of little people who lived in thatched cottages and mud walled hovels. Model making is like any other craft, the more you do it the easier it gets. I had no plans for this building. It's all based on a photo survey, the OS maps (to get the footprint), and some drone footage I found on Youtube. A few years back it would have taken me maybe a week just to do the drawings, I got them done in a day.

The thatched roof is cotton wool impregnated with PVA and acrylic paint, and pressed between two panes of glass. It works well at 2 mm scale, but I'm not sure how it would look in 4 mm scale.

Making good progress with Myrtle Grove. Have also started work on King House in Boyle. I started with a card mock-up, and have now completed all the windows and the carcass for the main block. Also have two models I made last June, one of a thatched cottage and the other a modern house. I have four models complete and one close to complete for my next exhibition.

Almost there with Ormond Castle. Two chimney caps and ground cover on the base board and it's done. The real thing has the ruins of the original medieval castle behind it but I'm not modelling that. My next build will be Myrtle Grove in Youghal. Also a Tudor house, dating from the 1550s. Its most famous resident was Walter Raleigh who lived there from 1588 to 1589. Legend has it that the first potatoes in Ireland were planted in the garden. It is privately owned and still a family home. A remarkable survivor, 475 years old and still standing.

As master modeller Kathy Millat once said if your not making mistakes your not learning. I like to keep pushing the limits in all aspects of life, you only live once.

After my summer break, the new model making season has begun. I spent the last few months doing a lot of research into Irish architectural heritage. My plan for this season is to work on another exhibition, which I hope to have ready by April. The working title is "The Irish House", so a range of buildings from a ring fort, to a modern mansion. My first build of the season is Ormond Castle in Carrick on Suir. A unique Irish building, the only Tudor manor house ever built in Ireland. Dating from the 1560s, it says something about the power and confidence of the Butlers of Ormond, that they built an unfortified manor house at a time when every body else was still building castles and forts. It's been as tricky model to build so far. The main part left to build is the ruined tower at the rear, which will be a new model making challenge for me. Also planned for this modelling season, is to get a double loop of track and some sidings laid, and get some trains running. I have a base board done so it would not take a lot of work to get trains running. The problem as always is getting distracted by buildings.

I've taken a break from making models until September, but I'm doing a lot of research on our architectural heritage. I have come across many sad cases of beautiful buildings abandoned and allowed to crumble, and others modified beyond recognition. This one pictured take the prize for least sensitive reuse of a historically important building, I've come across so far. Built in the 1820s, this is the gate lodge of Baronstown House, Co Westmeath, converted into a very grand cow house. It's so awful and ugly I'm nearly tempted to make a model of it.

My great fear about this project is that it may turn into a Children's Hospital on steroids. According to the Irish Times we had spent 300 million back in 2023, on this project. Presumably more has been spent since. Given that Belfast Grand Central Station was done and dusted for 340 million pounds, I have major doubts that an administration like ours that can spend 300 million and have nothing built for that, is well placed to deliver the metro project on time and on budget.

Conjectural model of medieval Cavan Abbey, based on a late 1500s map of Cavan Town. The tower I posted on May 7th is all that remains of the abbey. This model will be joining my other models on display in the County Museum, until November 1st. I'm hunting for a commission from a glamping site, so I've made a glamping pod as a sample. I also have a new website, which is still a work in progress but is now live at breffnimodels.ie

Another iconic Cavan building, Killykeen Cottage built in 1819 by Lady Farnham, on the shore of Lough Oughter. Anyone who has visited Killykeen Forest Park will recognise it.