16th Century Ireland’s Game of Thrones

Martello and MakeDot teamed up to win the commission from the Office of Public Works to interpret Ormond Castle in Co Tipperary.  The house with its magnificent panelled Long Gallery, is the finest surviving Elizabethan mansion in Ireland. It was home to the dashing ‘Black Tom’ Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, cousin and reputed lover of Elizabeth I of England. Mark Leslie and John Raftery are designing new tapestries to commemorate the long and bloody struggle between the Ormond, the Desmond and the Tudor dynasties to control 16th Century Ireland.