A statue of Daniel O’Connell, ‘The Liberator’, stands at the Southern end of the street named after him, overlooking O’Connell Bridge, the city’s main North-South link. Around the plinth fly bronze angels of victory, their wings pierced with bullet holes from the Easter Rising of...
This spacious Georgian town, with a long, straggling main street lined with neat houses and shops, marks the Westward limits of the Pale, the region centred on Dublin that was under direct English rule, and which gave us the expression ‘beyond the pale’. Still to...
Looking out over trim lawns, this Tudor-Gothic building with its red-brick façade, stone facings and stone-mullioned windows is all that a University building should be. Indeed, its central tower closely resembles the Founder’s Tower of Magdalen College, Oxford. The architect was Sir Charles Lanyon, designer...
A popular holiday resort, Valencia Island is reached by a modern bridge that spans the 120 yard wide channel from Portmagee. On the West side of the Island is a dark grotto with sacred figures appearing out of the gloom, set high in the cavernous...
Between the raw slopes of Benbeg (1788ft), in Joyce Country to the South, and the flank of the Partry Mountains to the North, is a lake of haunting beauty. In poor weather, when cloud and mist cloak the surrounding hills, Lough na Fooey is an...
The Augustinian priory of Kells – in full, Kells-in-Ossory (or Ceanannas Osraighe), to distinguish it from its more famous namesake in County Meath – was founded by Geoffrey FitzRobert in 1183, shortly after the Anglo-Norman invasion. It was to house the monks he brought to...
The charming village stands high above a neat little harbour, from which fishermen have gone out for centuries to the rich fishing grounds of Ballycotton Bay. The harbour is packed with trawlers and pleasure craft, and anglers can enjoy themselves with rod and line from...
The three graceful Gothic spires of Cork’s imposing and highly ornamented Church of Ireland cathedral are visible from all over the city. It stands very near the South channel of the River Lee, the site where, in about AD 600, Cork’s patron Saint, the scholarly,...
Overlooking the basin of the River Barrow and with fine views of the plain that stretches to Dublin are the vestiges of a monastery founded in the 5th century by St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to the Island. Like...
The most complete example of early Christian architecture to be found anywhere in Ireland is Gallarus Oratory, on a signposted site a mile inland from Smerwick Harbour. It has been dated to between 800 and 1200 and is a remarkable stone structure, shaped like an...