Michael Jackson slept here
ladylee1979
Posts: 257
EVEN in the context of the bizarre twisted fairytale of Michael Jackson's life, the time he spent living in a converted cowshed in rural Ireland takes some believing.
But in the summer of 2006, after his acquittal in the previous year's court case, having left Neverland and spent some time in Bahrain, the King of Pop secretly arrived in County Westmeath with his children. Relieved he had found a sanctuary away from the paparazzi and enchanted by an area so rich in history, myth and folklore, Jackson ended up staying for the rest of the year.
I've been given some odd assignments, but none quite so off the wall as sleeping in what used to be Jackson's bed; the Irish country homes he stayed in are available to rent for weekend breaks. Grouse Lodge is a secluded Georgian estate located down an unsigned, winding, potholed gravel drive near the village of Rosemount.
It was converted into a residential recording studio in 2002 by owners Paddy and Claire Dunning and has been used by everyone from REM to Doves, Muse to Ms Dynamite, Snow Patrol to Shirley Bassey.
Paddy is a modern-day renaissance man in his mid-40s whose life at times seems only slightly less fantastical than Jackson's.
He started out as a Dublin dustman and became one of the founding fathers of the resurgence of the Temple Bar district of the capital. Now his Dublin businesses include Temple Lane Studios, the Sound Training Centre, the Button Factory nightclub and the National Wax Museum Plus.
In 2006 a woman called Grace Rwaramba arrived to check out Grouse Lodge studio for an unnamed A-list pop star. She liked what she saw and booked the studio, plus a three-bed cottage on the grounds that had been converted from a cowshed. But she still didn't reveal who the artist was.
The Dunnings discovered the identity of their new lodger only when a bus turned up and out trooped Prince Michael Jr, Paris and Blanket, followed by their father, nanny Grace and the children's tutor.
Grouse Lodge is set around an old farmyard, and there's a collection of converted outbuildings that form a second grassed courtyard, none of which is visible from the road, so it's not hard to see why Jackson felt safe and secluded here. He began work on new material at Grouse Lodge with producers Will.I.Am and Rodney Jerkins, who flew in from the US.
Jackson fell in love with County Westmeath and, after a month in the converted cowshed, moved to the equally secluded neighbouring estate of Coolatore, also owned by the Dunnings.
Because Jackson didn't have his own driver in Ireland, Paddy enlisted local taxi driver Ray O'Hara to drive the family around in a borrowed people carrier with blacked-out windows. The Dunnings somehow managed to keep the fact the King of Pop was in residence a secret for several months. Even when Jackson began to venture out and there were rumoured sightings of him in the nearby villages of Moate or Kilbeggan, the Dunnings would deny all knowledge. "If someone said to me: 'I've heard Michael Jackson is there,' I would tell them: 'Yeah, so is Elvis Presley,' " says Paddy.
The only security Grouse Lodge arranged was to post three guards on rotation at the top of the drive to intercept unwelcome visitors. When word eventually began to leak out, locals in the know became protective of Jackson, sending reporters the wrong way, and one farmer even threatened to empty his slurry trailer over the car of a paparazzo.
The Irish Midlands are often overlooked by people rushing from Dublin to Galway or other parts of the west coast, but it's a magical land dotted with ringforts and medieval castles. Within a few miles of Coolatore are the twin historic hills of Cnoc Aiste and Uisneach; there's Lough Ennell and Lilliput, where Jonathan Swift first conceived Gulliver's Travels (Paddy is planning on an eco village in woods near Lough Ennell, along with a seven-storey model of Gulliver) and Locke's Distillery in Kilbeggan, now a museum.
There are also a few local pubs that haven't changed for decades, such as the William Fox in Loughnavalley, and Gunnings in Rathconrath, which doubles as shop, newsagent, garage and community centre.
Traditionally, the hill of Uisneach is the geographical centre of Ireland. It's only 182m high, but from the top you can see 20 counties on a clear day
It was the ancient seat of the kings of Meath, the most sacred site in the world in pagan times, and home of the ancient festival of the fires, Bealtaine, which attracted Egyptians up the Shannon 2000 years ago. It's also home to the Cat Stone (or Stone of Divisions), said to be the burial place of the goddess Eriu (who gave her name to Ireland, or Eire) and where the ancient provinces of Ireland were divided.
Uisneach is now part of the farm belonging to David Clarke, and on May 1 this year Clarke and Paddy organised the first Festival of the Fires for more than 1000 years, attracting a diverse mix of locals, farmers, clairvoyants, witches, wizards and gurus from far and wide. A beacon was lit on Uisneach, sparking a chain of fires on 73 hills across the country, from Dingle to Donegal.
"Michael [Jackson] was interested in history," says Paddy, "and smitten by the intricacies of Irish music." The Dunnings have a wealth of stories from the time they spent with Jackson. "One night we ended up in the studio," Paddy recalls. "Michael was on the drums, I was playing guitar and [American producer] Nephew was on the keyboards and we just started getting a rhythm together, and slowly but surely Nephew just creeped the song into Billie Jean. It was mad playing Billie Jean with Michael Jackson; I never thought I'd do that."
Paddy is a natural raconteur. He tells me how, when he bought the Wax Museum Plus, Dublin's answer to Madame Tussauds, the resident Elvis was looking a little tired, so Paddy retired him, placing him in the woods by Coolatore. He had forgotten about him until Jackson came in from a walk one day looking shaken
"Paddy," he said, "I just met my father-in-law in the woods."
Towards the end of his stay in Westmeath, Jackson started to look at prospective houses to buy. When the Dunnings bought a further property, Bishopstown House, a derelict Georgian estate a couple of kilometres away, Jackson visited it and discussed the renovations with Paddy.
So, although it would be a little disingenuous to call Bishopstown the house that Jacko built, it's certainly the house built with Jacko in mind. Jackson had a base in London for his ill-fated 50-date run of gigs at the O2 but, according to Paddy, he planned to spend time in Ireland, escaping the media glare of the English capital.
Both Coolatore and the newly converted Bishopstown are now available for hire. Coolatore is the larger estate of the two. It's a beautiful 1866 Victorian country retreat with grand living and dining rooms, a library and a hidden staircase that leads down to a basement bar installed by the Guinness family.
Bishopstown, having been derelict for years before the Dunnings took it over, has been converted in a much more contemporary style, with an extension added to the original Georgian house, along with a secret fourth-floor roof garden. Both houses have six bedrooms and five bathrooms. The houses are rented primarily as self-catering properties and if you use all the available beds they can work out costing about E100 ($138) a night each
It is also possible to have meals supplied by nearby Grouse Lodge (they can also arrange everything from massages to clay pigeon shooting), with menus focusing on local produce and vegetables grown in their own walled garden.
Claire and the staff at Grouse Lodge cooked for Jackson, who favoured a simple, healthy diet of porridge for breakfast and main meals of fish or chicken with vegetables. "The guy was fit, he was getting stronger," Paddy says. "And I reckon that if he had lived here and stayed here, he wouldn't have died
But in the summer of 2006, after his acquittal in the previous year's court case, having left Neverland and spent some time in Bahrain, the King of Pop secretly arrived in County Westmeath with his children. Relieved he had found a sanctuary away from the paparazzi and enchanted by an area so rich in history, myth and folklore, Jackson ended up staying for the rest of the year.
I've been given some odd assignments, but none quite so off the wall as sleeping in what used to be Jackson's bed; the Irish country homes he stayed in are available to rent for weekend breaks. Grouse Lodge is a secluded Georgian estate located down an unsigned, winding, potholed gravel drive near the village of Rosemount.
It was converted into a residential recording studio in 2002 by owners Paddy and Claire Dunning and has been used by everyone from REM to Doves, Muse to Ms Dynamite, Snow Patrol to Shirley Bassey.
Paddy is a modern-day renaissance man in his mid-40s whose life at times seems only slightly less fantastical than Jackson's.
He started out as a Dublin dustman and became one of the founding fathers of the resurgence of the Temple Bar district of the capital. Now his Dublin businesses include Temple Lane Studios, the Sound Training Centre, the Button Factory nightclub and the National Wax Museum Plus.
In 2006 a woman called Grace Rwaramba arrived to check out Grouse Lodge studio for an unnamed A-list pop star. She liked what she saw and booked the studio, plus a three-bed cottage on the grounds that had been converted from a cowshed. But she still didn't reveal who the artist was.
The Dunnings discovered the identity of their new lodger only when a bus turned up and out trooped Prince Michael Jr, Paris and Blanket, followed by their father, nanny Grace and the children's tutor.
Grouse Lodge is set around an old farmyard, and there's a collection of converted outbuildings that form a second grassed courtyard, none of which is visible from the road, so it's not hard to see why Jackson felt safe and secluded here. He began work on new material at Grouse Lodge with producers Will.I.Am and Rodney Jerkins, who flew in from the US.
Jackson fell in love with County Westmeath and, after a month in the converted cowshed, moved to the equally secluded neighbouring estate of Coolatore, also owned by the Dunnings.
Because Jackson didn't have his own driver in Ireland, Paddy enlisted local taxi driver Ray O'Hara to drive the family around in a borrowed people carrier with blacked-out windows. The Dunnings somehow managed to keep the fact the King of Pop was in residence a secret for several months. Even when Jackson began to venture out and there were rumoured sightings of him in the nearby villages of Moate or Kilbeggan, the Dunnings would deny all knowledge. "If someone said to me: 'I've heard Michael Jackson is there,' I would tell them: 'Yeah, so is Elvis Presley,' " says Paddy.
The only security Grouse Lodge arranged was to post three guards on rotation at the top of the drive to intercept unwelcome visitors. When word eventually began to leak out, locals in the know became protective of Jackson, sending reporters the wrong way, and one farmer even threatened to empty his slurry trailer over the car of a paparazzo.
The Irish Midlands are often overlooked by people rushing from Dublin to Galway or other parts of the west coast, but it's a magical land dotted with ringforts and medieval castles. Within a few miles of Coolatore are the twin historic hills of Cnoc Aiste and Uisneach; there's Lough Ennell and Lilliput, where Jonathan Swift first conceived Gulliver's Travels (Paddy is planning on an eco village in woods near Lough Ennell, along with a seven-storey model of Gulliver) and Locke's Distillery in Kilbeggan, now a museum.
There are also a few local pubs that haven't changed for decades, such as the William Fox in Loughnavalley, and Gunnings in Rathconrath, which doubles as shop, newsagent, garage and community centre.
Traditionally, the hill of Uisneach is the geographical centre of Ireland. It's only 182m high, but from the top you can see 20 counties on a clear day
It was the ancient seat of the kings of Meath, the most sacred site in the world in pagan times, and home of the ancient festival of the fires, Bealtaine, which attracted Egyptians up the Shannon 2000 years ago. It's also home to the Cat Stone (or Stone of Divisions), said to be the burial place of the goddess Eriu (who gave her name to Ireland, or Eire) and where the ancient provinces of Ireland were divided.
Uisneach is now part of the farm belonging to David Clarke, and on May 1 this year Clarke and Paddy organised the first Festival of the Fires for more than 1000 years, attracting a diverse mix of locals, farmers, clairvoyants, witches, wizards and gurus from far and wide. A beacon was lit on Uisneach, sparking a chain of fires on 73 hills across the country, from Dingle to Donegal.
"Michael [Jackson] was interested in history," says Paddy, "and smitten by the intricacies of Irish music." The Dunnings have a wealth of stories from the time they spent with Jackson. "One night we ended up in the studio," Paddy recalls. "Michael was on the drums, I was playing guitar and [American producer] Nephew was on the keyboards and we just started getting a rhythm together, and slowly but surely Nephew just creeped the song into Billie Jean. It was mad playing Billie Jean with Michael Jackson; I never thought I'd do that."
Paddy is a natural raconteur. He tells me how, when he bought the Wax Museum Plus, Dublin's answer to Madame Tussauds, the resident Elvis was looking a little tired, so Paddy retired him, placing him in the woods by Coolatore. He had forgotten about him until Jackson came in from a walk one day looking shaken
"Paddy," he said, "I just met my father-in-law in the woods."
Towards the end of his stay in Westmeath, Jackson started to look at prospective houses to buy. When the Dunnings bought a further property, Bishopstown House, a derelict Georgian estate a couple of kilometres away, Jackson visited it and discussed the renovations with Paddy.
So, although it would be a little disingenuous to call Bishopstown the house that Jacko built, it's certainly the house built with Jacko in mind. Jackson had a base in London for his ill-fated 50-date run of gigs at the O2 but, according to Paddy, he planned to spend time in Ireland, escaping the media glare of the English capital.
Both Coolatore and the newly converted Bishopstown are now available for hire. Coolatore is the larger estate of the two. It's a beautiful 1866 Victorian country retreat with grand living and dining rooms, a library and a hidden staircase that leads down to a basement bar installed by the Guinness family.
Bishopstown, having been derelict for years before the Dunnings took it over, has been converted in a much more contemporary style, with an extension added to the original Georgian house, along with a secret fourth-floor roof garden. Both houses have six bedrooms and five bathrooms. The houses are rented primarily as self-catering properties and if you use all the available beds they can work out costing about E100 ($138) a night each
It is also possible to have meals supplied by nearby Grouse Lodge (they can also arrange everything from massages to clay pigeon shooting), with menus focusing on local produce and vegetables grown in their own walled garden.
Claire and the staff at Grouse Lodge cooked for Jackson, who favoured a simple, healthy diet of porridge for breakfast and main meals of fish or chicken with vegetables. "The guy was fit, he was getting stronger," Paddy says. "And I reckon that if he had lived here and stayed here, he wouldn't have died
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I think Paddy, Claire and the rest there are honest and genuine people, well that's my impression anyway.
L.O.V.E.