Hunting for Castles: Adare, Cahir and Cashel (well, that's a church but whatever)

We had a little change of plans for Sunday. Instead of heading to the Dingle Peninsula (we'll save it for our next visit), we went hunting for castles instead.  We'd done a lot of driving over the past couple of days and hunting for castles equaled a lot less driving than visiting the Dingle Peninsula.  As you can imagine from the pictures you've seen so far, you don't have to drive far to find a cool castle!

First stop in Sunday's castle hunt was Adare Castle (or come to find out also called Desmond Castle).  The cute little town of Adare was just 8k south of Limerick, and we were there in a heartbeat.  In the low, non-touristy season, they don't run tours through the castle ruins, and you can't get to them without trespassing.  We actually followed the rules and took pictures from a nearby bridge.

Random ruins on our walk through the park to Adare

Inside the random ruins

Adare Castle (or Desmond Castle)

Todd on the bridge we took photos from

The Adare estate was pretty extensive back in castle times...the church across the street

Adare Manor is also a part of the estate, and from what I understand is now a fancy hotel.  From Adare, we headed over to Cahir to walk through Cahir Castle, and on the way, we stopped to walk through the ruins of a church.

Just build the town around the ruin...we saw this a lot.

Headstones inside the church

Cahir Castle is one of Ireland's largest and best preserved castles.  For only €3.00, you get to roam all over the place, and that's exactly what we did.  It was so cool!

Outside Cahir Castle

We really got to climb up every tower and wall...so cool!

The steps were steep and skinny.

The Great Hall...and I can't even imagine how big the animal was who owned those antlers!

We have a very similar picture from New Zealand.

View of the town from the castle walls

Next stop, and just down the road from Cahir, was Cashel and the stunning Rock of Cashel.  It's not a castle.  It's a church, but it's a castle-sized church.  It sits up on a hill over looking the town, so the views from the town of the Rock of Cashel are amazing, and the views from the Rock of the surrounding countryside are pretty awesome as well.  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, but if you would like to see a floor plan and a bit more of the details, click for a nice 2 page guide.

Restoration of the murals painted on the ceiling of this smaller side chapel

Morbid little grave marker

The Queen was here on her recent, historic trip to Ireland

More mural restoration

For some size perspective, we added Todd to the picture.

One of the gravesite monuments on the site

and the top part of the monument which has fallen.

More ruins in the distance

Todd called this contraption - medieval jiffy pop

The Rock of Cashel and the sheep guarding its gates

After a fantastic time of hunting for castles with AMAZING weather to boot, we concluded our day with ice cream.