The first building was built at this site in the 13’s century according to the tradition. It was a monastery, and from the stones of it, McFtineen McCarthy built a castle. It was destroyed in the mid 17th century during Cromwell’s conquest. The Ardtully estate, deriving its name from the Irish ‘Ardtuillighe‘, came into the possession of the Orpen family at the end of the seventeenth century. The Orpen family build a mission house here, withing the remains of the old castle.

In 1837 this house was the residence of Richard Orpen Townsend, the first son of Richard Orpen and Anna Townsend. This structure is shown on the first edition ordnance survey map, circa 1846, surrounded by four circular towers, probably the remains of the old McFineen McCarthy castle. He had assumed the additional name of Towsend as a condition to an inheritance from his mother’s family. He had a daughter, Anna Sarah, but the Ardtully estate seems to have been inherited by a nephew, Sir Richard John Theodore Orpen (1788-1876).

Sir Richard Orpen Townsend demolished the earlier building in 1847 and built a 2-story, 5-bay Scottish-Baronial style castle of which we can see the remains today. It had 27 rooms, a circular 3-story battlemented corner tower on the southeast corner, and also a 3-story corbelled circular turret on the east corner.

The 1901 census record the occupants of the house as Richard Hugh Millerd Orpen who was 71 years of age and a retired solicitor; his wife, Amy Noble Orpen age 52; there five daughters, Constance, Norah, Olive, Mary and Ida; and their son, Richard Hugh Orpen, who records his occupation as a Civil Engineer. The Orpens had a house staff of just two: Mary Connor, age 23, Cook and Mary O Sullivan, age 21, Parlour Maid. Richard Hugh Orpen inherited the estate from his father, and when he died in 1911, the estate was inherited by his brother, Raymond William Orpen. Raymond was a doctor who had worked extensively in West Africa.

By the time Sir Richard died at the age of 87 his estate consisted of about 12,000 acres in Kerry and about 300 in Cork. He was knighted in 1868 for his services to the legal profession.  After Sir Richards death, Ardtully was inherited by one of his sons – Right Rev. Dr. Raymond D’Audemar Stack Orpen, Bishop of Limerick and Ardfert and Aghadoe.
During the Irish War of Independence, Ardtully House was burned down by the IRA, in 1921. IRA irregulars broke into the house and after dousing the furniture with petrol, set the place alight. By the following morning, it had been reduced to a smoldering wreck. It was never rebuilt. 🙁