Monday, 28th September, 2009: Yesterday was a productive day and I got to some barrows, ringforts, ecclesiastical sites and fortified houses. I now have a backlog of about 30 sites and hope to get about 3 sites up a week. I'm not going to flood the site with these places as there will be some weekends when I can't get out to see anything so it's best to have some places in reserve. Also I have finally finished the chronology of Irish history page. It is only basic and only meant to give people an idea of when certain periods were in history.
Saturday, 26th September, 2009: Yet again I have been slow to post stuff up this week. This is mainly because I have been busy with work this past week. I am hoping to have a bit of an overhaul done on the site this week also. You will note the animation on the homepage which looks great but needs to be sorted. It is really just an experiment at the moment but should be replaced soon with a standing stone one again. Also you will note that the notice saying 'look out for Kildare coming in 2010' had gone and been replaced with 'look out for county Carlow coming soon'. I have decided to go ahead and add Carlow before Kildare. This is mainly beccause I want to get some of Carlow's wonderful portal tombs on this site. Laois and Offaly are not blessed with such monuments and I have been giving a lot of space over to castles lately so I want to get some more ancient stuff up as well. Tomorrow I intend to go and see a few barrows which should be interesting...again I have no barrows up on this site so I want to get a bit of balance going since there are more barrows and ringforts than anything else out there. Hopefully I will have some Carlow site up by the end of October.
Sunday, 20th September, 2009: Went off to Offaly today and up to the area around Leap castle. I wanted to see Ballywilliam megalithic tomb - which is unclassified but nobody was home at the farm where the access was. I revisited Churchland and took a few extra pics which I will post up soon. I then went to Ballymooney castle which is a fortified house in poor condition. Worth a visit as the castle had somewhat of an unusual plan. Tipperary next weekend I think!
Saturday, 19th September, 2009: Went to Roscrea today and finally saw the castle there. It has been refurbished and done up for the tourists. The groin vault in the castle really took my breath away...I have never seen such a great example. The upper floor of the castle was a little too touristy for my liking but the information was good. Damer House, located on the same grounds, is also fantastic with many small exhibitions inside. I then went down to the friary and off to the remains of the Romanesque church and round tower. Unfortunately the museum there was closed for lunch so I might go back there tomorrow to finish up the tour of the town. the only thing I was unable to locate was the Roscrea pillar, which is a small pillar with early Christian decoration on. This is the second time that I have failed to see it. I'm sure they will tell me where it is at the museum tomorrow. I have a small list of place that I'll hopefully get to tomorrow including a couple of megalithic tombs and a fortified house.
Saturday, 12th September, 2009: I'm not going to manage to get to anywhere this week. I've been extremely busy and haven't even been able to post anything. I was hoping to get to Roscrea and cover the town but it wasn't meant to be. I've got 24 sites backed up which I need to get posted so hopefully this week I will get a couple of sites up onto the blog. I'm working on a post about Monaincha abbey and high cross just outside Roscrea which should hopefully be up tomorrow with picture. Monaincha is one of my favourite sites that I have seen in Ireland so far and you will see why.
Sunday, 5th September 2009: Clonmacnoise didn't happen today after all because of the extremely bad weather. I'm going to invest in some proper water-proofs since this is the wrong country to be put off by weather. I still went to Clonony castle since I had an appointment and knew it would be indoors. It was fantastic and the owner/restorer is doing a fantastic job in the conservation and restoration of the castle inspite of un-neccesary opposition from Dublin. I will post about this castle in the next week or so I hope. If you end up there be sure to give a donation towards the restoration project.
Saturday, 4th September 2009: Just got back from an interesting day. I went up to Tullamore and had a look at the churches at Lynally and Rahan. Both were fascinating sites and the owner of Lynally, Mr. Mooney, was gracious enough to give me an insightful tour of the church and grounds. We then pressed on to Charleville castle, which was busy with a festival happening soon, but they gave me a tour nonetheless. It might be a while befor I get these places onto the site. They have a lot of history attatched to them. Tomorrow - Clonony and Clonmacnoise.
Thursday, 3rd September 2009: I will be going to see Clonony castle on Sunday and will pop over to Clonmacnoise again and get that photographed and I'm going to try and hunt down a nearby holy well as well as some rock art. I'm off to see Charleville castle next weekend and am trying to arrange a proper visit to Leap castle so I can cover the inside of the castle.
Tuesday, 1st September 2009: Looks like this weekend will be full of castles. I've been in contact with the owners of the recently refurbished Clonony castle in Offaly as well as Charleville castle near Tullamore. I'm hopefully going to see both on Saturday. While at Clonony I might pop into Clonmacnoise as that place needs to get up on this site. I'm hoping to follow the Grand Canal westwards in Tullamore also at there are about 4 castles and a standing stone as well as an ecclesiastical site all in a 8km stretch along there. I'm going to be busy!
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