The well-preserved ruins of an Augustinian priory stand about a quarter of a mile’s walk across fields at the edge of the vale of Suck. The original foundation on the site was by St Baetan in 805 and from 1140 it became a monastery of...
A ruined shell on a rise above a small, wooded rover valley is all that remains of one of the many tower houses built in this area by the de Burgo family. It dates from the 1630s, by which time these defensive buildings began to...
Known as “Arann’s well” in Irish, Tipperary is full of many interesting features including monuments to some of its less law-abiding citizens. The statue of the Maid of Erin commemorates three men known as the Manchester Martyrs, who were executed in England in 1867 for...
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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...