Perhaps the castle’s residents hid the items there during a raid, or maybe the knickknacks were placed there for washing and were never reclaimed. Or, a person could have dumped them into the pit, for lack of a better storage place, Giacometti said.

At any rate, the artifacts likely belonged to the household of Lord Adam Loftus (1625-1691), a descendant of the original Archbishop Adam Loftus, who built the castle, Giacometti said. The lord worked with King Charles II and King William of Orange, and oversaw Irish state finances during a time of great tension between Catholic Ireland and Protestant England.

Loftus lived at the castle with his wife Lucy, son James, who died young, and daughter Lucia, who married Philip Wharton the infamous “Rake of Rathfarnham.” The rake, a notorious rascal, scammed his way into prestigious positions, married multiple times (typically with bad results), invested heavily in economic bubbles and died nearly penniless, Giacometti said.