Whenever I spoke to friends during lockdown one of the things that always struck me was how much they were craving social interaction. From my point of view that was never a problem as life here at Huntington Castle [Co Carlow] is always busy. It is a working family home and three generations of us live here so even though we were in lockdown there were eleven of us under the one roof – a mini commune! It was like bringing back the 1970s when the castle was (in)famous as a hippy mecca and people would turn up for a weekend and still be there three years later. Alexander’s [Clare’s husband] grandparents and great aunt ran a meditation and arts centre which later became a fully-fledged religion – The Fellowship Of Isis – with its own Egyptian Temple, which is still there to this day in the old castle dungeons.

We try to organise special things every once in a while; for example we all make an effort to dress up and have dinner in the dining room on a Saturday night – to pretend we’re going out. During the week, however, we are more focused on a routine as we have three relatively young children [Herbert, 9, Esmonde, 8, and Freddie, 5] so home schooling looms large Monday to Friday. I take Freddie at 9am and we head out to my studio – I might work on some textiles and drawings while teaching phonics, juggling phone calls and navigating the online learning platform. I have to say the local National School here in Clonegal has been amazing and the staff have been so supportive in getting home schooling off the ground. It is a lot of work and a nightmare if you have more than one child to manage. Luckily my sister-in-law, Sarah, and Alexander have taken responsibility for the eldest two. Being boys and very close together in age they do present “certain challenges” from time to time but they have been generally good and may have actually learnt something.

Herbert, Freddie, Esmonde and Alexander with Mole and Myrtle the lurchers.

When the pandemic broke it really put things into perspective – in one sense both what we do here at the castle and my work as an artist seemed almost a complete luxury and things that belonged to a world pre-Covid19. The initial spike was very scary and watching the news was just terrible – people’s health and the courage of doctors and carers was all that really mattered. Now, some three months on, I suppose we have adjusted from that first wave and of course nature has moved on. I found it really ironic but also inspiring that in midst of such a terrible time we had an amazing spring. The natural world has always been one of my main sources of inspiration and as we moved through the lockdown I found I needed to spend more and more time working in my studio. Working with natural fibres and textiles such as wool is something I keep coming back to – we have a flock of 200 sheep here at the castle so I can literally be part of the yearly cycle. Out of all this I have produced what is probably my largest piece of textile work yet – it’s about ten square metres and Alexander calls it my “corona quilt” – I’m not sure what I’m actually going to call it – I’m still working on it and I’ll see where it takes me.

The castle is quite funny to explain to people – it is definitely a privilege to live here but it comes with a lot of responsibility and practically no privacy. It’s been in Alexander’s family since it was built in 1625 and it’s very much a family home but one that is open to the public. We do guided tours of the castle, bed and breakfast, weddings and events. Of course all of that has been stopped since lockdown but hopefully from July 20 we will slowly get the house open again.

The gardens have been open since May 18 and with the good weather it has been great to see people coming out to enjoy the sunshine and a takeaway coffee. We take a lot of pride in both the castle and the gardens. We have an original 17th-century Wilderness which I find compliments the more formal areas such as the Italian Gardens and Rose garden. The 700-year-old Yew Walk is probably one of my favourite areas, it is so atmospheric. New projects are always on the go and we have been working hard on what we are calling our Rhododendron Quarter – an area of the Wilderness we have planted with lots of species Rhododendron sourced from [renowned grower] Ken Cox in Scotland. It will look amazing in years to come. When planning gardens you have to have the patience of a saint as there are always setbacks; this year a lot of the tender new growth was killed by a really late frost in mid-May.

It has been a rollercoaster year so far – the start of 2020 was filled with so much promise – who’d have ever thought that six months later the tearooms would only just have opened to serve visitors takeaway coffee from behind a plastic screen with a face-mask and gloves? At least we are open now and that gives us some hope of seeing things slowly starting to open up … Fortunately the gardens are looking great, the wheel of the year still turns and each season will bring us something new from nature.

Need to Know: The gardens at Huntington Castle are open from 11am – 5pm daily. Huntington Castle, Clonegal, County Carlow; www.huntingtoncastle.com