The lands of Moydrum were granted by the English Crown to the Handcock family, originally from Devon in England, during the Cromwellian plantations of Ireland in the 17th century.

[1] The Baron decided to create an appropriate stately home on his lands at Moydrum, and therefore asked architect Richard Morrison to remodel and enlarge an existing house belonging to the family there, built c.1750.

[2][3] The resulting gothic-revivalist castle was completed in 1814 and was described in A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, published in 1837 by Samuel Lewis, as "a handsome castellated mansion [..] beautifully situated in an extensive demesne, on one side of which is a small lake".

Moydrum Castle, given its status as the seat of a prominent member of the British House of Lords, was chosen as a suitably symbolic subject for their reprisals.

The 5th Baron was out of Ireland at the time but his wife and daughter, together with several servants, were in residence and were woken from their sleep by knocking at the door.

The photograph, however, was a virtual copy of a picture on the cover of a 1980 book In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland by Simon Marsden, for which U2 had to pay compensation.