The Burren

The word "Burren" comes from an Irish word "Boíreann" meaning a rocky place. This is an extremely appropriate name when you consider the lack of soil cover and the extent of exposed Limestone Pavement. However it has been referred to in the past as "Fertile rock" due to the mixture of nutrient rich herb and floral species.

The Burren region is internationally famous for its landscape and flora. A visit to the Burren during the summer months will leave a person amazed by the colourful diversity of flowering plants living together within the one ecosystem. Arctic-alpine plants living side by side with Mediterranean plants, calcicole (lime loving) and calcifuge (acid loving) plants growing adjacent to one another and woodland plants growing out in the open with not a tree nearby to provide shade from the sun. Also found here are certain species which although rare elsewhere are abundant in the Burren. Even more amazingly they all survive in a land that appears to be composed entirely of rock.

http://www.burrennationalpark.ie/history.html

Malahide Castle & Gardens

How far back can you catalogue your family tree?  Malahide Castle and Gardens is one of the oldest castles in Ireland, set on 260 acres, this magnificent & historic 12th century castle has been home to the Talbot family for over 800 years. 

http://www.malahidecastleandgardens.ie/TheCastle/HistoryOverview/

Book of Kells/ Trinity College

The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58) is celebrated for its lavish decoration. The manuscript contains the four Gospels in Latin based on a Vulgate text, written on vellum (prepared calfskin), in a bold and expert version of the script known as "insular majuscule".

The place of origin of the Book of Kells is generally attributed to the scriptorium of the monastery founded around 561 by St Colum Cille on Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland. In 806, following a Viking raid on the island which left 68 of the community dead, the Columban monks took refuge in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath. It must have been close to the year 800 that the Book of Kells was written, although there is no way of knowing if the book was produced wholly at Iona or at Kells, or partially at each location.

It has been on display in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin from the mid 19th century, and attracts over 500,000 visitors a year. Since 1953 it has been bound in four volumes. Two volumes are on public view, one opened to display a major decorated page, and one to show two pages of script. The volumes are changed at regular intervals.

http://www.tcd.ie/Library/bookofkells/

Kilmainham Gaol

Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol held some of the most famous political and military leaders in Irish history such as Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell, the 1916 Rising leaders and Eamon de Valera.

One of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920s. Attractions include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration. The tour of the prison includes an audio-visual show. 

Since its restoration, Kilmainham Gaol has been understood as one of the most important Irish monuments of the modern period. Principally this has been understood in relation to the narrative of the struggle for Irish independence. In the period of time extending from its opening in 1796 until its decommissioning in 1924 it has been, barring the notable exceptions of Daniel O'Connell and Michael Collins, a site of incarceration of every significant Irish nationalist leader of both the constitutional and physical force traditions. Thus, its history as an institution is intimately linked with the story of Irish nationalism. The majority of the Irish leaders in the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916 were imprisoned there. It also housed prisoners during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and many of the anti-treaty forces during the civil war period. Charles Stewart Parnell was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, along with most of his parliamentary colleagues, in 1881-82 when he signed the Kilmainham Treaty with William Gladstone.^[15]

http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-wilderness-yearskilmainham-gaol-1924-1960/

http://www.irishhistorylinks.net/pages/Kilmainham.html

Guinness Storehouse

Come and explore Ireland's number one visitor attraction, providing an unforgettable welcome and a magical journey deep into the heart of the world famous GUINNESS® brand and company. This historical building is central to Dublin's and Ireland's heritage, and has been continually updated to create a blend of fascinating industrial tradition with a contemporary edge. The seven floors bring to life the rich heritage of GUINNESS®, telling the story from its origins here at St. James's Gate in Dublin to its growth as a global brand, known all around the world.

Gravity Bar at Guinness Storehouse

https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/Inside.aspx

Bru na Boin: Newgrange/Knowth

Newgrange:

Newgrange is the best known Irish passage tomb and dates to c.3, 200BC. 

It is ironic that one of Irelands best known prehistoric monuments should be called New. After the foundation of the Cistercian Abbey at nearby Mellifont in 1142, the land around the monument was acquired by the order. It became a grange, an outlying farm of the abbey thus giving the passage tomb and the surrounding townland its modern name.

In the old stories, the name given the monument was Sí in Bhrú, the Fairy Mound of the Brú. It was said to have belonged to Elcmar who was married  to Boann(the river Boyne). The Dagda (the Good God) sent Elcmar away on business. While Elcmar was gone,the Dagda and Boann had a son Oengus. Elcmar was away for nearly a year but when he came back, it only seemed as if he had been away for one night. Later on, Oengus had to trick his father, the Dagda, to get Sí in Bhrú as his inheritance.

In one of Ireland's most famous stories, Toraíocht Diarmuid agus Gráinne, Oengus brought the body of the hero Diarmuid back to Sí na Bhrú for safe keeping.

http://www.worldheritageireland.ie/bru-na-boinne/built-heritage/newgrange/

Knowth

Knowth consists of one large mound containing two passage tombs surrounded by eighteen smaller mounds. The largest of the mounds is known as Site 1. This great monument covers about half a hectare (approx. 1.5acre) and is 95m across at its widest point. Around the entrances to the tombs are settings of unusual stones such as quartz, granite and banded stones. Smaller tombs, some of which are connected to the large tomb, cluster around the great mound.

There are two stories told about how Knowth Cnobga got its name. In the first, it is said that it derives from Cnoc Bua or Bui (Hill of Bua or Bui). The name Bui is that of the famous ‘hag’ of Beare.The hag's role in Irish tradition as earth goddess, as well as her associations with death, make Bui an appropriate connection with Knowth.

More fanciful is the story which recalls that the lover of Oengus was abducted from a feast she was attending. The rest of her party ran after her as far as  Cnobga. Her friends raised a loud lamentation and sustained themselves on the only food they could find there, the hazel nut.

Folklore

Long before the excavations at Newgrange began in 1962, there had been  a story told that on certain days of the year, (nobody could say just when) sunlight fell on the tri spiral design in the back chamber of Newgrange. Professor O'Kelly was familiar with this tale when he started his work. He thought that the tale confused Newgrange with the well known alignment at Stonehenge. However he recalled the story when the roof box was rediscovered in 1963. He found in 1967 that the beam of light that penetrates the chamber at dawn at the winter solstice reaches the floor just below the tri-spiral. No one in modern times could possibly have seen the light in the chamber before Professor O'Kelly, as the roof box had been blocked up with stones and covered by the collapsing walls of the cairn. It seems incredible that the story for so long considered an old wives tale was proved right.

Locally, the monuments of Brú na Bóinne are called 'the caves'. It is interesting that all over the world, 'caves' whether natural or artificial have long been regarded as sacred places. 

http://www.worldheritageireland.ie/bru-na-boinne/built-heritage/knowth/

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Blarney Castle

History

Blarney Castle, as viewed by the visitor today, is the third to have been erected on this site. The first building in the tenth century was a wooden structure. Around 1210 A.D. this was replaced by a stone structure which had the entrance some twenty feet above the ground on the north face. This building was demolished for foundations. In 1446 the third castle was built by Dermot McCarthy, King of Munster of which the keep still remains standing.

Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster

The lower walls are fifteen feet, built with an angle tower by the McCarthys of Muskerry. It was subsequently occupied at one time by Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, who is said to have supplied four thousand men from Munster to supplement the forces of Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Legend has it that the latter king gave half of the Stone of Scone to McCarthy in gratitude. This, now known as the Blarney Stone, was incorporated in the battlements where it can now be kissed.

Queen Elizabeth

The Earl of Leicester was commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to take possession of the castle. Whenever he endeavoured to negotiate the matter McCarthy always suggested a banquet or some other form of delay, so that when the queen asked for progress reports a long missive was sent, at the end of which the castle remained untaken. The queen was said to be so irritated that she remarked that the earl's reports were all 'Blarney'.

Cromwell's General, Lord Broghill

The castle was eventually invested by Cromwell's General, Lord Broghill, who, planting a gun on Card Hill opposite and above the lake below the present mansion or new castle, succeeded in breaking the tower walls. However, when his men entered the keep, he found two old retainers, the main garrison had fled by the underground caves situated below the battlements known as the Badgers Caves. There are three passages, one to Cork, one to the lake and one seemingly to Kerry. At any rate, all had gone together with the reputed gold plate.

Sold to Sir James St. John Jefferyes in 1688

A subsequent owner of the estate endeavoured to drain the lake at the bottom of which the plate was supposed to have been thrown. A fortune was spent in vain. The estate was forfeited by Donogh McCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarthy, who supported James II in the Williamite Wars, the property passed to the Hollow Sword Blade Company who subsequently sold it to Sir James St. John Jefferyes, Governor of Cork in 1688.

Building of Blarney House

His son, by same the name, was Minister Plenipotentiary for England at the court of Charles Battle of Poltawa. He was rewarded with a full length portrait of the king and a ruby gilted sword which he subsequently sold to drain and improve all his land surrounding the castle. At the beginning of the eighteenth century during the reign of Queen Anne, Sir James St. John Jefferyes built a Georgian gothic house up against the keep of the castle as was then the custom all over Ireland. At the same time the Jefferyes family laid out a landscape garden known as the Rock Close with a remarkable collection of massive boulders and rocks arranged around what seemed to have been druid remains from pre-historic times. Certainly, many of the yew trees and evergreen oaks are extremely ancient. In 1820 the house was accidently destroyed by fire and the wings now form a picturesque adjunct to the keep, recently in the 1980s rearranged to give a better view of the keep. The Jefferyes intermarried on 14th January 1846 with the Colthurst family of Ardrum, Inniscarra and Ballyvourney, Co. Cork, and Lucan, Co. Dublin. The early children dying, Lady Colthurst decided to build the new castle in Scottish baronial style south of the present keep. This was completed in 1874 and has been the family home ever since.