Cork castle to re-open after major renovation
One of the country's finest tower houses dating from the 16th century is to re-open to the public this weekend following extensive renovation and restoration works by the Office of Public Works.
Barryscourt Castle in east Cork was once the seat of thede Barry family, who arrived in Ireland during the Norman invasion of 1172.
Its one of five major OPW Nature Conservation Projects set to re-open in the coming year.
The castle, which dates from 1552, has been extensively restored, and the visitor will now be able to visit the main hall and great hall, as well as the dungeon, master bedroom, kitchen, and the chapel.
The chapel is said to be one of only two such chapels in the country and bears Ogham domestic graffiti believed to be from the 16th century.
The castle is complete with an outer defensive wall or bawn, and largely intact corner towers within which is the herb and knot garden, and the orchard, which have also been restored.
Restoration work to the four-storey castle has been described as "technically challenging" given the problems with water ingress.
It is estimated that over 20 kilometres of repointing was carried out as part of the renovation works.
The great hall is also a maternity site for bats.
The castle first under went restoration work in the 1990s under Duchas, which saw its vaulted roof restored, but water ingress led to dampness and flooding issues within the building.
Those issues combined with electrical faults forced its closure to the public in 2016, when a decision was taken to carry out a major restoration and renovation of the castle.
This afternoon, the Taoiseach Micheal Martin joined the Minister with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Kevin 'Boxer' Moran, to officially re-open the castle, which has been a work of love for the skilled craftspeople from the OPW's District Works in Mallow.
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RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
What have the Anglo-Normans ever done for us anyway?
Analysis: Not much really apart from giving us counties, the Pale, fortified towns, stone castles, gothic architecture and markets... In August 1967, Arthur Butler, the sixth Marquis of Ormond, gave the keys of Kilkenny Castle to James Gibbons, chairman of the Kilkenny Castle Restoration and Development Committee. This symbolic gesture marked the end of centuries of Butler family stewardship of the castle, a lineage that traced back to the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The onlookers included then Minister for Finance Charlie Haughey and, surprisingly, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, who were seeking refuge from the British press following a recent drug scandal. From RTÉ Archives, 1967 RTÉ News report on the handing over of the keys to Kilkenny Castle by the Butler family witnessed by Charles Haughey, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull Rock 'n' roll luminaries aside, the event signified the closing chapter of one of Ireland's most prominent Anglo-Norman dynasties. 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Yet what appears from this brief analysis, is that their story is not one of simple conquest or assimilation, but of enduring influence, adaptation and cultural fusion.
Irish Independent
6 days ago
- Irish Independent
Wexford's ‘secret garden' may be getting an extension as council called upon to purchase adjoining lands
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Irish Examiner
04-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
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Similarly, the idea of perspectives came up on the Junior Cycle exam. Podcasting made another appearance on the 2025 Junior Cycle exam, with a question based around 'The Black & Irish Podcast'. However, a question asking students to write about a short story they have covered may have caused some to stumble. 'That technically is on the course, it is a specification but that specification is huge,' Ms Barry explained. 'The amount of material they must cover on it, and that is the first year they have specifically been asked to cover a short story they have studied. It's very, very difficult to teach the whole specification,' she added. 'I would expect they would interpret short stories there liberally when they go to correct it. It's something they might not have done. They would have read them as part of the Junior Cycle, but they mightn't have been expecting them as an exam question.' 'It's come up in the past to write their own short story, rather than analyse one as a text. Some of our students here, they were able to take something they had read and answer that way but I do think out of all the questions, that was so new and that would have been the one that caused some to stumble.' 'That will all be reflected when they come to the marking scheme, I would reassure people about that.' The ordinary level Junior Cycle paper was very 'nice and straightforward', she added. 'I'm not sure about this way they have of testing vocabulary where they ask what this word means, and they mightn't know the word, they just get given a random five words, but overall, I did think it was very candidate friendly.' Read More Record number of students to sit State exams this year
