before going south to besiege Wexford. Adam Loftus, who recovered his castle and lands under Cromwell, sided with the Parliamentarians and was killed at the Siege of Limerick in 1651. After the English Civil War, the Loftus family retained ownership of the castle. In 1659, Dr. Dudley Loftus, great-grandson of Archbishop Loftus, took over the castle. During his lifetime, Dudley held the posts of Commissioner of Revenue, Judge of the Court of Admiralty, Master in Chancery, representative for Kildare & Wicklow in the Protectorate Parliament and MP for Naas, Bannow and Fethard (Co Wexford). His body is interred at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The eighteenth century The property then passed by marriage to Philip Wharton. The young man lost his money in the South Sea Bubble and in 1723 the castle was sold for £62,000 to the Right Hon William Conolly, speaker of the Irish House of Commons. In 1742, it was sold to Dr. Hoadly, Archbishop of Armagh, and on his death four years later it passed to his son-in-law Bellingham Boyle. In 1767, Boyle sold the property to Nicholas Hume-Loftus, second Earl of Ely, a descendant of Adam Loftus, the original builder of the castle. Nicholas died within a few years, probably as an indirect result of great hardships which he had suffered in his youth, and the estate passed to his uncle, Hon. Henry Loftus, who was created Earl of Ely in 1771. In commemoration of regaining ownership, the Loftus family constructed another entrance for the castle in the form of a Roman Triumphal Arch. The arch can still be viewed from nearby Dodder Park Road. Henry Loftus, Earl of Ely was responsible for much of the conversion of the medieval fortress into a Georgian mansion and employed renowned architects Sir William Chambers and James 'Athenian' Stuart to carry out these works. The mullioned windows were enlarged and the battlements replaced by a coping with ornamental urns. A semi-circular extension was added to the east side and an entrance porch approached by steps, on the north. The interior was decorated in accordance with the tastes of the period and leading artists, including Angelica Kauffman were employed in the work. Writers of the period who visited the house have left extravagant descriptions of its splendour. Henry died in 1783 and was succeeded by his nephew Charles Tottenham. He subsequently became Marquess of Ely as a reward for his vote