Kilkenny Castle (Irish: Caisleán Chill Chainnigh) was built by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke n 1195 to control a fording-point of the River Nore and the junction of several routeways. James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde, bought the castle in 1391 and established himself as ruler of the area. The Butler dynasty ruled the surrounding for over five hundred years. Among the many notable, Lady Margaret Butler (c. 1454 or 1465–1539) the Irish noblewoman, the daughter of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond. Lady Margaret Butler was born in Kilkenny Castle. She married Sir William Boleyn and was the paternal grandmother of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England.
The Castle became the seat to the very powerful family, the Butlers of Ormonde or Butler family, who lived there until 1935.
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Tags: Ireland Ireland Travel Michael Locke
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Of the many reasons I wanted to visit Ireland, tracing my family roots was certainly in the back of my mind. My 6th great grandfather came from County Meath, near Dublin. Some in the family point out that Slane castle is near the Hill of Tara in County Meath, but so far as we have been able to discover, the name of the castle has no known connection with the Slane family. Moreover, County Meath is in Catholic Ireland but almost all of the Irish Immigrants during the Colonial era were Protestants from Northern Ireland.
To the north of the village rises the Hill of Slane; there are a number of historic sites located around the top of the hill. In the Metrical Dindshenchas, a collection of bardic verse, the ancient Fir Bolg king Sláine mac Dela was said to have been buried here, in the place that had been called Druim Fuar that came to be known in his memory Dumha Sláine.[10][better source needed] There is an artificial mound on the western end of the hilltop. The hill may have been chosen as the site of Christian abbey due to the presence of an existing pagan shrine, the remains of which may be two standing stones in the burial yard. Muirchu moccu Machtheni, in his highly mythologised seventh century Life of Patrick, says that St. Patrick lit a Paschal fire on this hill top in A.D. 433 in defiance of the High King Laoire who forbid any other fires while a festival fire was burning on the Hill of Tara. Historians and archaeologists agree that Muirchu has moved to Slane a fire lit elsewhere;[12] The Hill of Slane can be seen from the Hill of Tara which is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) away. According to Muirchu, Logaire was so impressed by Patrick's devotion that, despite his defiance (or perhaps because of it), he let him continue his missionary work in Ireland. It is somewhat more certain that Patrick appointed a bishop of Slane, Saint Erc.
Tags: Ireland Michael Locke Donna Locke
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On the road to Dublin, we made a stopover at Conmacnoise one of the most important monastic sites in all Ireland, founded by St. Ciarán in 544 A.D.
Until the 9th century it had close associations with the kings of Connacht. The strategic location of the monastery helped it become a major centre of religion, learning, craftsmanship, and trade by the 9th century and together with Clonard it was the most famous in Ireland, visited by scholars from all over Europe. From the ninth until the eleventh century it was allied with the kings of Meath. Many of the high kings of Tara and Connacht were buried here.
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Tags: Clonmacnoise Michael Locke
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The city of Dublin is the capital of Ireland; it was established as a Viking settlement in the 10th century and remained under Viking control until the Norman invasion of Ireland launched in 1169. The city stands at the foot of the Wcklow mountains, facing Dublin Bay. The River Liffey flows through the heart of the city. The city's main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street, crosses the river by O'Connell Bridge.
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Ross Castle is a 15th-century tower house and keep on the edge of Lough Leane, in Killarney National Park, County Kerry, Ireland. It is the ancestral home of the Chiefs of the Clan O'Donoghue,
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