Five irregularly spaced drum towers linked by massive walls are all that remain of the castle that King John built in the early 13th century to keep the peace in Thomond (as the area was then called) between the Norman settlers and the O’Brien clan,...
One a strongly fortified harbour town, Youghal (pronounced ‘yawl’) is now a popular seaside resort with wide sandy beaches. Its Irish name means ‘yew wood’, from the forests that once covered the hinterland. Youghal is strategically placed at the mouth of the River Blackwater. It may...
County Clare is a peninsula on the grand scale, cut off on three of its four sides by Lough Derg, the Shannon estuary, and the Atlantic. It is linked with the rest of Munster by only half a dozen bridges, all of which are in...
Kilkenny, County Kilkenny Before the Normans came in the 12th century, Kilkenny’s houses clung to the 6th century monastery of St Canice and the settlement was the capital of Ossory, a sub-Kingdom of Leinster. But the strategic possibilities of the hilltop site where quickly grasped by...
Five irregularly spaced drum towers linked by massive walls are all that remain of the castle that King John built early 13th century to keep the peace in Thomond (as the area was then called) between the Norman settlers and the O’Brien clan, Kings and...
What is left of Dromana House is dramatically sited on a rocky escarpment overlooking the Blackwater estuary. It was built in the 17th and 18th centuries as an addition to a 15th century stronghold of the Fitzgeralds, badly damaged in the Civil War. Much of...