The Custom House, erected between the years 1781 and 1791, at a cost of £546,000, is the finest public building in Dublin; it represents the flowering of Dublin commerce and Irish parliamentary power in the 18th century. James Gandon, whose master piece it was, and...
The Easter Rising of 1916 was a curious event, tiny in comparison with the rebellion of 1798, for instance, with only about 2000 people actively taking part in it. It was disastrously badly organised and commanded very little public support, but its martyred hero’s glow...
County Wicklow, with its moorland wastes and bare granite hills has a wealth of lovely valley, wooded glen, and smoking waterfall. Dean Swift likened it to “a frieze mantle fringed with gold lace”. Much of the coastland is low, being a drift covered plain, fringed...
If you’re looking for gold at the end of the rainbow, look no further than the Republic of Ireland. Whether you’re race-horse-crazy, golf-mad, or a dedicated gourmand, love wild and wonderful scenery or prefer life in the City, look no further than a vacation on...
The granite ridge that forms the lovely Wicklow and Blackstairs Mountains across the south-east corner of Ireland has given this region a distinctive character and history. For centuries it formed a barrier against invaders from the west. As a result, the inhabitants who settled on...
The 3 mile wide lake, which is nearly circular, is the star attraction of the Lough Key Forest Park. Writers have chronicled the history of Lough Key for nearly 1000 years, starting with the year 1041 in the Annals of Lough Key. The Annals were compiled...
The county capital, Carlow was once an outpost that had to provide its own defence as it was isolated from the Pale around Dublin, which the Anglo-Normans ruled and defended. Carlow developed around a massive Norman keep, built in 1207-13 to guard a strategic crossing...
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...
This prosperous market town straddles a tree-lined stretch of the River Blackwater on the main Cork - Dublin road. But crumbling barracks ruins mark Fermoy as a former British garrison. lt owes its origins to a farsighted Scots merchant, John Anderson, who bought the land...
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...