E-Learning Curve Blog’s Other Podcast: New Episode Released
I think it’s time to take a break from the topics of the last few weeks, which have been about e-learning tools and technologies in some shape or form, and take a moment listen to what can be achieved when you actually put these tools to use to create some content.
Let’s take in a little culture.
This episode of the E-Learning Curve Blog’s Other Podcast is from my personal audio archive; I 
re-discovered it while researching something else, but I thought I might bring it to you because it aptly demonstrates the effectiveness of using wildtrack in an audio production, and the skill of an unusual subject matter in bringing a topic to life.
That said, I was very new to making radio documentaries (as we called them in the old days) when I produced this, so let’s make a deal, OK?
You get to listen to the curator of this fascinating house talk about it’s history if you ignore my occasionally shaky voice-over narration. I was literally trying to find my voice in this medium at that time. I’m sure you went through the same process of discovery during the course of your own experiments with podcasting.
Castletown House, a Place in History
Castletown House in Celbridge, County Kildare is Ireland’s earliest, largest, and some would say finest Palladian country house. It was built between 1722 and 1729 for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and the wealthiest commoner in Ireland. The façade was almost certainly designed by the Italian architect, Alessandro Galilei, while the Irish architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce added the house’s wings.
The house remained in the hands of the Speaker’s descendants until 1965 when the house was purchased by a property developer. Fortunately the house was saved in 1967 when the house itself and 120 acres of Castletown Demesne lands were purchased by the Hon. Desmond Guinness, founder of the Irish Georgian Society.
Prospect of Castletown House, Co. Kildare, Ireland. I think my car looks good in the driveway, don’t you?
The house was opened to the public in the same year and restoration work began, funded by the Irish Georgian Society and private benefactors. In 1979 care of the house passed to the Castletown Foundation, a charitable trust which was established to own, maintain and to continue the restoration of the house.
In 1994 the house was transferred to State care and it is now managed by the Office of Public Works. The transfer to State ownership paved the way for a major program of restoration and conservation work of the house and demesne lands. Through restoration, conservation, acquisition of parkland and development of visitor facilities, the long term objective is to preserve for future generations one of the most important houses in Ireland and one of significance in terms of European architectural heritage.
In 1998 I had the opportunity to meet with Gillian Byrne, who was curator of Castletown House at the time, and she was kind enough to give me a personal tour of the house, and tell me about its history.
Click here to listen to the Castletown House, a Place in History podcast.
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November 17 2009 04:00 pm | e-learning
