Other sights in Ireland
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Belvelly
Two kilometres out of Midleton on the N25 towards Fota, the effervescent Frank Hederman runs Belvelly, the oldest natural smoke house in Ireland – and indeed the only one. Seafood and cheese are smoked here, but the speciality is fish – in particular, salmon. In a traditional process that takes 24 hours from start to finish, the fish is filleted and cured before being hung in the tiny smoke house to smoke over beech woodchips. No trip to Cork is complete without a visit to an artisan food producer, and Frank is more than happy to show you around; phone or email to arrange. Or stop by his booth at the Midleton farmers market.
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Henrietta Street
Henrietta St dates from the 1720s and was the first project of Dublin’s pre-eminent Georgian developer, Luke Gardiner. It was designed as an enclave of prestigious addresses (Gardiner himself lived at No 10), and remained one of Dublin’s most fashionable streets until the Act of Union (1801). It’s looking a little forlorn these days after spending much of the 20th century as tenement housing, where up to 70 tenants were crammed into each four-storey house. Some of the residences are in disrepair, yet it’s still a wonderful insight into the evolution of Georgian residential architecture, and features mansions of varying size and style.
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Bunratty Castle
Square and hulking Bunratty Castle is only the latest of several constructions to occupy its location beside the River Ratty. Vikings founded a settlement here in the 10th century, and other occupants included the Norman Thomas de Clare in the 1270s. The present structure was put up in the early 1400s by the energetic MacNamara family, falling shortly thereafter to the O’Briens, kings of Thomond, in whose possession it remained until the 17th century. Admiral Penn, father of William Penn, who was the Quaker founder of the US state of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia, lived here for a short time.
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Arbour Hill Cemetery
Just north of Collins Barracks, this small cemetery is the final resting place of all 14 of the executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. The burial ground is plain, with the 14 names inscribed in stone. Beside the graves is a cenotaph bearing the Easter Proclamation, a focal point for official and national commemorations. The front of the cemetery incongruously, but poignantly, contains the graves of British personnel killed in the War of Independence. Here, in the oldest part of the cemetery, as the gravestones toppled, they were lined up against the boundary walls where they still stand solemnly today.
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Boyle Abbey
Gracing the River Boyle is the finely preserved (and reputedly haunted) Boyle Abbey. Founded in 1161 by monks from Mellifont in County Louth, the abbey captures the transition from Romanesque to Gothic style, best seen in the nave, where a set of arches in each style face each other. Unusually for a Cistercian building, figures and carved animals decorate the capitals to the west. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey was occupied by the military and became Boyle Castle; the stone chimney on the southern side of the abbey, which was once the refectory, dates from that period.
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Mitchels Town Caves
While the Galtee Mountains are mainly sandstone, a narrow band of limestone along their southern side has given rise to the Mitchels town Caves . Superior to Kilkenny's Dunmore Cave and yet less developed for tourists, these caves are among the most extensive in the country with nearly 3km of passages and spectacular chambers full of textbook formations with names such as the Pipe Organ, Tower of Babel, House of Commons and Eagle's Wing. Tours take about 30 minutes. Year-round, the cave temperature remains a constant 12 ˚C, making it feel warm in winter and chilly in summer.
The caves are near Burncourt, 16km southwest of Cahir and signposted on the N8 to Mitchelstown…
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Ego Patricius
The Saint Patrick Centre houses a multimedia exhibition called Ego Patricius, charting the life and legacy of Ireland’s patron saint. Occasionally filled with parties of school kids, the exhibition uses audio and video presentations to tell St Patrick’s story, often in his own words (taken from his Confession, written in Latin around the year AD 450, which begins with the words ‘Ego Patricius’, meaning ‘I am Patrick’). At the end is a spectacular widescreen film that takes the audience on a swooping, low-level helicopter ride over the landscapes of Ireland.
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Glebe House
The English painter Derrick Hill bought historic Glebe House in 1953, providing him with a mainland base close to his beloved Tory Island. Before Hill arrived, the house served as a rectory and then a hotel. The 1828-built mansion is sumptuously decorated with an evident love of all things exotic, but its real appeal is his astonishing art collection. In addition to paintings by Hill and Tory Island’s ‘naive’ artists are works by Picasso, Landseer, Hokusai, Jack B Yeats and Kokoschka. The woodland gardens are also wonderful. A guided tour of the house takes about 45 minutes.
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Huntington Castle
Accessed by a long driveway off the main street, Huntington Castle is a spooky, dusty old keep built in 1625 by the Durdin-Robertson family, who still own it and live here today. The family conduct hour-long tours of the property, which, they claim, is haunted by two ghosts: Bishop Leslie (a former bishop of Limerick) and Ailish O’Flaherty (the granddaughter of Grace O’Malley, the Pirate Queen). Descending to the castle’s basement brings you to the Temple of Isis, where the Fellowship of Isis, worshipping the ancient Egyptian goddess, was founded by the family in 1963.
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Famine Warhouse
A relic of one of Ireland's darkest chapters, the Famine Warhouse sits seemingly benignly today amid typical farmland near Ballingarry. During the 1848 rebellion, rebels led by William Smith O'Brien besieged police who had barricaded themselves inside and taken children hostage. Things did not go well and this incident marked the effective end of the rebellion. Besides exhibits about the incident, there are also displays detailing the famine and the mass exodus of Irish emigrants to America.
The warhouse is 30km northeast of Cashel on the R691 about midway to Kilkenny. Be careful navigating as County Tipperary has two Ballingarrys; the wrong one is over by Roscrea.
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Old Courthouse
The 18th-century Old Courthouse is home to an excellent heritage centre with creepily lifelike recreations that use actors’ faces projected onto waxworks. In this manner, Manus O’Donnell tells the story of Donegal’s Gaelic chieftains and several bona-fide trials are re-enacted in the austere courtroom (including that of Napper Tandy, John ‘half-hanged’ McNaughten and the Lord Leitrim murder). A guard will take you down to the prison cells, accompanied by sounds of banging doors and ominous footsteps, to be locked up for sheep-stealing or the like.
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Ormond Castle
Carrick-on-Suir was once the property of the Butlers, the Earls of Ormond, who built Ormond Castle on the banks of the river in the 14th century. Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII’s wives, may have been born here, though other castles also claim this worthy distinction, possibly hoping to boost their own sales of knick-knacks celebrating the beheaded. The Elizabethan mansion next to the castle was built by the 10th Earl of Ormond, Black Tom Butler, in long-term anticipation of a visit by his cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, who rather thoughtlessly never turned up.
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King’s Inns
Home to Dublin’s legal profession, King’s Inns occupies a classical building on Constitution Hill, which was built by James Gandon between 1795 and 1817, with Francis Johnston chipping in with the cupola. In 1541, when Henry VIII staked his claim to be King of Ireland as well as England, the country’s lawyers took the title the Honourable Society of King’s Inns and moved into a Dominican monastery on the site of the modern-day Four Courts. When that building was erected they relocated here, where Irish barristers are still trained. It’s only open to members and their guests.
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Caherconnell Fort
For a look at a well-preserved caher (walled fort) of the late Iron Age-Early Christian period, stop at Caherconnell Fort, a privately run heritage attraction that's more serious than sideshow. Exhibits detail how the evolution of these defensive settlements may have reflected territorialism and competition for land among a growing, settling population. The drystone walling of the fort is in excellent condition. The top-notch visitor centre also has information on many other monuments in the area. It's about 1km south of Poulnabrone Dolman on the R480.
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Cloghan Castle
About 3km south of Banagher off the R439 in Lusmagh is Cloghan Castle, in use for nearly 800 years. The castle has seen more than its fair share of bloodshed, beginning life as a McCoghlan stronghold and later becoming home to the mighty O’Carroll clan. Today the castle consists of a well-preserved Norman keep and an adjoining 19th-century house full of interesting antiques and armaments. Groups of up to five people can take an hour-long tour of the castle (€35) if you phone in advance. Occasional concerts are also held here. Ask at the tourist office.
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Copper Coast European Geopark
Stretching 25km west of Tramore, the rugged coastline of the Copper Coast European Geopark takes its name from the 19th-century copper mines outside Bunmahon. Among the area’s scalloped coves and beaches are geological formations dating back 460 million years, including quartz blocks, fossils, and former volcanoes. Free one-hour guided walks are available in July and August, or you can pick up a map from the park office in Bunmahon. The park encompasses Annestown, which has the dubious distinction of being the only village in Ireland without a pub.
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Gardens
From the Cappoquin road there are stunning glimpses of the riverside Lismore Castle, which is closed to day-trippers but available for groups to hire. You can visit the 3 hectares of gardens, thought to be the oldest in Ireland, divided into the walled Jacobean upper garden and less formal lower garden. There are brilliant herbaceous borders, magnolias and camellias, and a splendid yew walk where Edmund Spenser is said to have written The Faerie Queen. There are contemporary sculptures dotting the gardens.
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Millmount Museum
A section of the army barracks is now used as the Millmount Museum, which has interesting displays about the town and its history. Exhibits include three wonderful late-18th-century guild banners, perhaps the last in the country. There is also a room devoted to Cromwell’s brutal siege of Drogheda and the Battle of the Boyne. The pretty cobbled basement is full of gadgets and kitchen utensils from bygone times, including a cast-iron pressure cooker and an early model of a sofa bed. There’s also an excellent example of a coracle.
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Mt Usher Gardens
Horticulturalists from around the world can be found salivating and muttering in approval as they walk around the 8-hectare Mt Usher Gardens, just outside the unremarkable town of Ashford, about 10km south of Greystones on the N11. OK, not really, but the gardens are pretty special, with trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants from around the world laid out in Robinsonian style – ie according to the naturalist principles of famous Irish gardener William Robinson (1838–1935) – rather than the formalist style of preceding gardens.
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Curraghmore Estate
Lord and Lady Waterford dwell at the 1000-hectareCurraghmore Estate, which has belonged to the family since the 12th century. Its lavish gardens incorporate the whimsical shell house built by Catherine Countess of Tyrone in 1754, who arranged for sea captains docking at Wexford's port to bring her seashells from distant shores. By prior appointment, the fine Georgian house , containing some superior plaster work, is open to visitors.
Curraghmore is 14km northwest of Waterford town, 3.5km northwest of the pretty village of Portlaw. Suirway buses from Waterford can drop you 1km from the estate entrance.
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St Patrick’s Cathedral
The St Patrick’s Cathedral was built between 1838 and 1873 in Gothic Revival style, with huge twin towers dominating the approach up flight after flight of steps. Inside it seems almost Byzantine, with every piece of wall and ceiling covered in brilliantly coloured mosaics. The sanctuary was modernised in 1981 and has a very distinctive tabernacle holder and crucifix that seem out of place among the mosaics and statues of the rest of the church. Mass is said at 10am Monday to Friday, and at 9am, 11am and 5.30pm on Sunday.
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St Peter's Church of Ireland
North of the centre of town is St Peter’s Church of Ireland, containing the tombstone of Oliver Goldsmith’s uncle Isaac, as well as an image on the wall depicting two skeletal figures in shrouds, dubiously linked to the Black Death. This is the church whose spire was burned by Cromwell’s men, resulting in the death of 100 people seeking sanctuary inside. Today’s church (1748) is the second replacement of the original destroyed by Cromwell. It stands in an attractive close approached through lovely wrought-iron gates.
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Doe Castle
The interior of the early 16th-century DoeCastle isn’t open to the public, but locals open the gates each day, allowing you to wander through the grounds. The castle was the stronghold of the Scottish MacSweeney family until it fell into English hands in the 17th century. The castle is picturesquely sited on a low promontory with water on three sides and a moat hewn out of the rock on the landward side. The best view is from the Carrigart–Creeslough road. It’s signposted 16km from Dunfanaghy on the Carrigart road.
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Beaulieu House
Beaulieu House, about 5km northeast of Drogheda on the Baltray road, is a particularly good example of the Anglo-Dutch style and – apparently – the first unfortified mansion to be built in Ireland. It was built between 1660 and 1666 on lands confiscated from the Plunkett family (the family of the headless Oliver) by Cromwell, and given to the marshal of the army in Ireland, Sir Henry Tichbourne. The red-brick mansion, with its distinctive steep roof and tall chimneys, has been owned by the same family ever since.
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Powerscourt Waterfall
A 7km walk to a separate part of the estate takes you to the 130m Powerscourt Waterfall. It’s the highest waterfall in Britain and Ireland, and is most impressive after heavy rain. You can also get to the falls by road, following the signs from the estate. A nature trail has been laid out around the base of the waterfall, taking you past giant redwoods, ancient oaks, beech, birch and rowan trees. There are plenty of birds in the vicinity, including the chaffinch, cuckoo, chiffchaff, raven and willow warbler.
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