Killruddery House, where I live and work, is about a mile from Ardmore film studios as the crow flies. The Brabazon family have owned it since 1534 in the time of Henry VIII, but didn’t live here initially. They moved from Dublin in 1618 and have been here ever since. The house is in a Tudor-revival style and was rebuilt in the 1800s, but the layout of the gardens is from the 17th century. This is a family home and there are three generations here.
Killruddery has always needed outside income. The connection to film and TV started in the 1950s. It’s great income, but it’s not something you can rely on and it never goes in the budget. It’s a bonus that you can use to fix the roof.
I remember seeing Excalibur, John Boorman’s film about the legend of King Arthur, being filmed on the grounds here when I was about four. The special effects were so gory I was traumatised: watching a knight chop off another guy’s hand, blood spurting everywhere. It’s fun now.
There’s always something going on. Netflix has been coming for years to make Fate: The Winx Saga. It’s a teenage drama — like Harry Potter, but with fairies. Moonhaven, which was filmed last year, will also be out soon.
Now the plan is to generate income on the property. In summer we have house tours. Mostly visitors want to know who lives here and what they do. They want to know how many servants we have. We have staff, but most are on the business side: the Grain Store restaurant, events, weddings or the garden, which is open all summer. We’re open 360 days a year and there are 35 people employed.
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In 1998 I came back from Dublin to work on the estate and I took it over in 2007. I did my Green Cert — an education programme for young farmers so they know what they’re up to — and became a farmer. At any one time we have 30-40 pigs, 40 cattle, 200 sheep and some chickens. The pigs are middle white, a small breed that has nearly died out. They are pretty cute and they have snubby noses, so they don’t destroy the fields as much as other breeds might.
I manage the house, the garden and the farm. I do some IT stuff too. My wife, Fionnuala, is the CEO, so she looks after strategy, planning, catering and events.
We’re in a valley so you can see Bray Head and the Little Sugar Loaf. We’re all the bit in between. The estate covers 800 acres and we have all the wild animals: deer, badgers, hedgehogs, pine martens, buzzards, sparrowhawks. We have a biodiversity manager: you never see him because he is always in camouflage gear and wandering around in the middle of the night. Half the acreage is forest and my father manages all that. It’s like a biodiversity sink.
I can be anywhere from up the mountains or in the woods to in the restaurant, though I’m not great at table service. I cover about 10,000 steps a day without thinking about it. Half my time is probably spent outside poking at drains and trying to deal with runaway animals — they tend to escape at weekends.
I share an office in the basement with Roman, our estate manager. There are a few antiquey things lying around. I inherited my Victorian desk as it was the most uncomfortable one in the house. Then one day I realised the front flips down and the whole thing rolls back and it is amazing.
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I have a company stamp we use on documents. It has two wyverns holding up the shield and three martlets, a type of mythical bird, on the shield. That’s quite fun. Sitting in the back of the office there’s a wood-carved family crest too. I use it as a Zoom backdrop.
Outside my office I have a lovely clock; there’s another special one in the main hall. My great-grandfather [Reginald Le] Normand Brabazon designed it and had the mechanism made in London. We’ve just had it restored. It’s huge, 30ft tall, and is made out of old bedpans and bicycle chains. The face is an old dumb waiter table centre.
He was a horologist, among other things. Some of his clocks are in the Science Museum in London. He made a water clock in 1913 with a unique design that it is very famous among horologists. He stopped in about 1920, when he decided the whole timekeeping issue had been solved by quartz.
I have a little bright yellow four-wheel drive Panda, which I enjoy driving around the place. It does the school run and takes me up the mountain to collect the animals. It’s perfect for my job and puts a smile on my face every day.
Killruddery gardens reopen on April 1; killruddery.com
