Fodor's Expert Review Dunguaire Castle
Like a chess piece flung onto a windswept rock a short stroll from the village of Kinvara, Dunguaire Castle has braced the Atlantic for 400 years, replacing the king of Connaught's 6th-century palace upon its construction. Built in 1520 by the O'Hynes clan, the tiny storybook castle takes its name from the fabled king of Connaught, Guaire. In 1924 it was purchased by Oliver St. John Gogarty, the noted surgeon, man of letters, and model for Buck Mulligan, a character in James Joyce's Ulysses. Many of the leading figures of the 19th-century Celtic revival in Irish literature came to visit his west coast outpost. Today Dunguaire is used for a medieval banquet that honors local writers and others with ties to the West, including Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats, Seán O'Casey, and Pádraic Ó Conaire.
Book in advance for the medieval banquet.
