Amazing Ireland
Top 10 Attractions in Ireland
The Cliffs of Moher
The Cliffs of Moher on the coast of County Clare, are one of the Ireland’s best known landmarks. Jaggedly facing the Atlantic, these yes we’re used as a protection against the Vikings. There is an ancient fort on the Cliffs as well, were entered into be one of the wonders of the world.
Dingle
The Dingle Peninsula and the Blasket Islands.The Blasket Islands are magnificent red sand stone rocky islands are once a four some of Ireland’s greatest writers especially in the 1920s and 1930s, after the population kindling to 22 people in 1953 he items became abandoned, the islands are now designated historic Park where you can see the old Irish costumes in a magnificent setting.
The Dingle Peninsula is famous for its friendly locals and refreshing scenery, this beautiful town has some great pubs where you can relax and enjoy a pint of Guinness, Dingle town has some great lively Irish music.
Lakes of Killarney
The Lakes of Killarney are located in County Kerry and makes calamity is one of the most great taking scenic views in Europe, mountains surround these three beautiful lakes, close to the town of Killarney, it is considered on of the most beautiful areas in Ireland with lots of small islands within the lakes, there is a Castle are on the eastern shore.
Three Lakes and the mountains are within Killarney national Park, I do recommend to visit will Muckross house. Queen Victoria explored this beautiful house back in 1861, you can see the splendor which brought her to the location.
Wicklow mountains national park
The Wicklow Mountains National Park was established in 1991 and is owned by the people of Ireland. It consists of an extensive upland area of Ireland and one of the country's most beautiful regions. The 400 million year old mountains and the more recent glaciated features blend well with the animal and plant life there today. A large population of deer occupies the open mountain area of the park.
The national park has no restrictions to visitors and is open to the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Also to be found in The Wicklow Mountains National Park is the famous early christian monastic site and one of Ireland's most popular visitor attractions, Glendalough.
Grand Atlantic Drive
Experience the glorious natural beauty of the Grand Atlantic Drive, which winds through Downings and Rosapenna and past golden beaches and rocky headlands.
The Atlantic drive offers the visitor spectacular scenery. The Atlantic drive will bring you past Granuaile’s castle, which was once a watchtower for the famous 16th century pirate queen of Connaught. This route passes the spectacular Cathedral Rocks: water-carved cliffs that somewhat resemble a Gothic cathedral rising from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dublin
Dublin is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. Founded as a Viking settlement, the city has been Ireland's primary city for most of the island's history since medieval times. Today, it is an economic, administrative and cultural centre for the island of Ireland and has one of the fastest growing populations of any European capital city.
The city has a world-famous literary history, having produced many prominent literary figures, including Nobel laureates William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett. Other influential writers and playwrights from Dublin include Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and the creator of Dracula, Bram Stoker. It is arguably most famous, however, as the location of the greatest works of James Joyce. Dubliners is a collection of short stories by Joyce about incidents and characters typical of residents of the city in the early part of the 20th century. His most celebrated work, Ulysses, is also set in Dublin and full of topical detail. Additional widely celebrated writers from the city include J.M. Synge, Seán O'Casey, Brendan Behan, Maeve Binchy, and Roddy Doyle. Ireland's biggest libraries and literary museums are found in Dublin, including the National Print Museum of Ireland and National Library of Ireland.
There is a vibrant nightlife in Dublin and it is reputedly one of the most youthful cities in Europe - with estimates of 50% of inhabitants being younger than 25. Furthermore in 2007, it was voted the friendliest city in Europe. Like the rest of Ireland, there are pubs right across the city centre. The area around St. Stephen's Green - especially Harcourt Street, Camden Street, Wexford Street and Leeson Street - is a centre for some of the most popular nightclubs and pubs in Dublin. The internationally best-known area for nightlife is the Temple Bar area just south of the River Liffey.
Balrney
Blarney (An Bhlárna in Irish) is a village in the south of Ireland, located 8km north-west of Cork, Ireland. It is the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone. Blarney village is a major tourist attraction in County Cork. Mostly people come to see the castle, kiss the stone, and to shop at the "Blarney Woolen Mills" center.
By kissing the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, it is claimed that one can receive the "Gift of the Gab" (eloquence, or skill at flattery or persuasion). The legend has its roots in the response of the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth I to Cormac Teige McCarthy's attempt to blandish his way out of a difficult situation, during negotiations of the takeover of the Blarney Castle by the occupying English forces. Cormac himself was the King of Munster, living in the Blarney Castle around the 14th century. The stone itself is rumoured to have been created by a witch during the Middle Ages.
The centre of the village is dominated by The Square - a grass field where Blarney locals and townspeople from Cork city sometimes congregate during the summer.
Several attempts to beautify the square over the years have always been met with stiff objection from the locals.[citation needed] Previously the square was used for markets.
Blarney formerly had its own narrow gauge railway station. The Cork and Muskerry Light Railway linked Blarney with Cork; it opened in 1887 but closed on 29 December 1934.
Kilkenny Castle
Kilkenny Castle (Irish: Caisleán Chill Chainnigh) is a castle in Kilkenny, Ireland. It was the seat of the Butler family. Formerly the family name was FitzWalter. The castle was sold to the local Castle Restoration Committee in the middle of the 20th century for £50. Shortly afterward it was handed over to the State, and has since been refurbished and is open to visitors. Part of the National Art Gallery is on display in the castle. There are ornamental gardens on the city side of the castle, and extensive land and gardens to the front. It has become one of the most visited tourist sites in Ireland.
Kilkenny castle was the venue for the meeting of the General Assembly, or parliament, of the Confederate Ireland government in the 1640s.
Awards and conferring ceremonies of the graduates of "Kilkenny Campus" of National University of Ireland, Maynooth have been held at the castle since 2002.
The present castle is located on a prominent vantage point at a bend in the River Nore. This strategic site was where the local kings, the O'Carrolls (840 AD), O’Dunphys and Fitzpatricks, had their castle(s) before the Norman invasion. Richard de Clare (also known as Strongbow) built the first Norman tower on the site in 1172. Twenty years later, de Clare's son-in-law, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, built the first stone castle on the site, of which three towers still remain. The entrance was through the (now missing) east wall. Various other features of the original castle have also been excavated, including original stone buttressing and a garderobe.
Rear view of the castleThe Butler family arrived in Ireland with the Norman invasion, changing their name from Walter in 1185. The castle was owned by the seneschal of Kilkenny Sir Gilbert De Bohun who inherited the county of Kilkenny and castle from his mother in 1270, in 1300 he was outlawed by Edward I but was reinstated in 1303, he held the castle until his death in 1381. It was not granted to his heir Joan, but seized by the crown and sold to the Butler family. By 1391, the family had become wealthy, and James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde, bought the castle and established himself as ruler of the area. The Butler dynasty then ruled the surrounding area for centuries.
In the 17th century, the castle came into the hands of Elizabeth Preston, wife of then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, another James Butler, also 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Ormonde. Butler, unlike most of his family, was a Protestant and throughout the Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s was the representative of Charles I in Ireland. However, his castle became the capital of a Catholic rebel movement, Confederate Ireland, whose parliament or "Supreme Council" met in Kilkenny Castle from 1642-48. Ormonde himself was based in Dublin at this time. The east wall and the northeast tower of the Castle were damaged in 1650 during the siege of Kilkenny by Oliver Cromwell during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. They were later torn down. Then, in 1661, Butler remodelled the castle as a “modern” château after his return from exile. A new entrance gateway in the south wall was built around this time.
The castle seen from the nearby River Nore.By the 18th century, the castle had become run down, reflecting the failing fortunes of the Butler family. However, some restoration was carried out by Anne Wandesford of Castlecomer, who brought wealth back into the family upon marrying John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde.
In the 19th century, the Butlers then attempted to restore it to its original medieval appearance, also rebuilding the north wing and extending the south curtain wall. More extensions were added in 1854.
During the Irish Civil War in 1922, Republicans were besieged in the Castle by Irish Free State forces. The Ormondes, together with their pet Pekinese, chose to remain in situ in their bedroom over the great gate, which was the main focus of attack. There was a machine gun outside their door. One man was injured but a great deal of damage was inflicted on the castle, which took many years to repair.
The Butler family remained living in the castle until 1935, when they sold its contents for £6,000, moved to London, and abandoned it for thirty years. The impact of rising taxes, death duties, economic depression and living costs had taken their toll. While the Ormondes had received £22,000 in rental income in the 1880s, investment income in the 1930s was in the region of £9,000 and by 1950 these investments yielded only £850. They disposed of the bulk of their tenanted estates in Tipperary and Kilkenny, 21,000 acres (85 km²), by 1915 for £240,000. Death duties and expenses following the death of James Butler, 3rd Marquess of Ormonde in 1919 amounted to £166,000.
View from the river, 1841In 1967, Arthur Butler, 6th Marquess and 24th Earl of Ormonde, sold the abandoned and deteriorating castle to the Castle Restoration Committee for £50, with the statement: "The people of Kilkenny, as well as myself and my family, feel a great pride in the Castle, and we have not liked to see this deterioration. We determined that it should not be allowed to fall into ruins. There are already too many ruins in Ireland." He also bought the land in front of the castle from the trustees "in order that it should never be built on and the castle would be seen in all its dignity and splendour". Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull turned up at the castle hand over party, with Jagger telling the newspapers "We just came to loon about."
The rest of the 20th century saw a large amount of restoration and maintenance take place, as well as the castle being opened to visitors. The Butler Gallery, in the castle basement, holds rotating exhibitions put on by the Kilkenny Art Gallery Society in a venue named for Peggy and Hubert Butler.
Trnity College and Book of Kells
Trinity is located in the centre of Dublin, Ireland, on College Green opposite the former Irish Houses of Parliament (now a branch of the Bank of Ireland). The campus occupies 190,000m² (47 acres), with many buildings, both old and new, ranged around large courts (known as "squares") and two playing fields. The Library of Trinity College is a copyright library for Ireland and the United Kingdom, containing over 4.5 million books and significant quantities of maps, manuscripts and music.
The Library of Trinity College is the largest research library in Ireland. As a result of its historic standing, Trinity is a legal deposit library (as per Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003) for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and has a similar standing in Irish law. The college is therefore legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland and consequently receives over 100,000 new items every year. The library contains 4.5 million books, including 30,000 current serials and significant collections of manuscripts, maps, and printed music. Six library facilities are available for general student use.
The €27 million James Usher Library, opened officially by the President of Ireland in April 2003, is the newest addition to Trinity's library facilities. The eight story 9,500 m² building provides 750 new reader spaces and houses the Glucksman Map Library and Conservation Department. The Glucksman library contains half a million printed maps, the largest collection of cartographic materials in Ireland. This includes the first Ordnance Surveys of Ireland, conducted in the early 19th century.
The Book of Kells is by far the Library's most famous book and is located in the Old Library, along with the Book of Durrow, the Book of Howth and other ancient texts. The Book of Kells is widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure. Transcribed by Celtic monks around the year 800, it contains the four Gospels of the New Testament in Latin, and is a spectacular example of the tradition of illuminated manuscripts. Also incorporating the Long Room, the Old Library is one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions, and holds thousands of rare, and in many cases very early, volumes.
Three million books are held in the book depository in Santry, from which requests are retrieved twice daily.
In the 18th century, the college received the Brian Boru harp, one of the three surviving medieval Gaelic harps, and a national symbol of Ireland, notably used on the Irish Euro coins.
Cork City
Cork is one of those delightful small cities where everything is easily accessible, and you can enjoy yourself tremendously wandering down narrow lanes or up unexpected flights of steps. This is an up-and-down town, built on more hills than Rome, and that is reflected both in the steps and, even more engagingly, in the gloriously up-and-down accent of the true born-and-bred Corkonian. It is also a city of rivers, with more tributaries, channels and streams than the Danube delta. That's because it is built on an island in the River Lee which
"encloseth Corke with his divided floode"
as the poet Spenser wrote many centuries ago. Spenser was of course married here, so the city always held a special place in his heart.
It will hold a special place in your heart too and once you've visited, you will always long to come back. Even if you have only limited time – on this visit at least - here are ten of the things that you must not, on any account, omit from your schedule. They are listed in order of this writer's personal preference but any Corkonian will doubtless challenge the ranking energetically. No matter. That's part of the fun.
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