This is the biggest Norman castle in Ireland. Set in a grassy riverside park at the edge of this sleepy town, its mighty keep towers above a ruined outer wall.
It replaced a wooden fortification that was destroyed in 1173 by Irish High King Rory O’Connor, who led a raid against the invading Normans.
The current castle was completed in the 1220s and served as a powerful Norman statement to the restless Irish natives. It remained a sharp barb at the fringe of “the Pale” (English-controlled territory), when English rule shrank to just the area around Dublin in the 1400s.
By that time, any lands further west were “beyond the Pale.”
Today the castle remains an impressive sight – so impressive that it was used in the 1994 filming of Braveheart (which was actually about Scotland’s – not Ireland’s – fight for freedom from the English).
The best-preserved walls ring the castle’s southern perimeter and sport a barbican gate that contained two drawbridges.
At the base of the castle walls, notice the cleverly angled “batter” wall – used by defenders who hurled down stones that banked off at great velocity into the attacking army.
Notice also that the castle is built directly on bedrock, visible along the base of the walls.
During sieges, while defenders of other castles feared that attackers would tunnel underground to weaken the defensive walls, that was not an issue here.
The massive 70-foot-high central keep, which is mostly a hollow shell, has 20 sides. This experimental design was not implemented elsewhere because it increased the number of defenders needed to cover all the angles.
You can only go inside the keep with the included tour, where you’ll check out the cool ground-floor models showing the evolution of the castle.
Then you climb a series of tightly winding original staircases and modern high catwalks, learn about life in the castle, and end at the top with great views of the walls and the countryside.
There are quite a few ruins right in the neighborhood as well – making for a nice walk and wander.
