With the news that Meta<\/a> chief executive Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> has purchased Strancally Castle in Waterford<\/a>, an enormous 1847 mansion on more than 400 acres that I had never heard of, I became concerned I might be absolutely riddled with castle blindness. <\/p>\n Castle ruins do dot the Irish landscape, but I fear I\u2019m completely environmentally numb to them. A tourist driving through the country might point with glee at a crumbling tower in a field surrounded by unimpressed Friesians while I simply don\u2019t register it at all. A quick Google tells me there are 30,000 castle sites and ruins in Ireland! <\/p>\n In fairness, the term \u201ccastle\u201d might be doing a lot of heavy lifting. When we think \u201ccastle\u201d we think vast buildings with high curtain walls and moats and battlements, but it seems that between the 1400s and 1600s the Normans could be throwing up any old one-family tower and calling it a castle. Most of these structures, along with a great deal of their more impressive counterparts, have fallen to ruin thanks in part to our old pal Cromwell. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve decided to embark on an autumn project to attempt to cure myself of my castle blindness. I\u2019m going to start with some of the biggies, to get my bearings. Drimnagh Castle is less than a 10-minute drive from my house, and to my great shame I have never visited. The website tells me it is available for hire for photoshoots for \u20ac200 an hour. Do I have an Instagram carousel in my future featuring multiple damsel-in-distress poses? Could Norman knight Hugo de Berneval, who built Drimnagh Castle in 1240, ever have imagined his great fortress would one day sit close to an Aldi and be within spitting distance of the Walkinstown Roundabout? <\/p>\n My home county of Kildare seems to be teeming with castles. The ruin of Kilteel Castle, which is just a few minutes\u2019 drive from where I grew up, is a 15th century, five-storey fortress with a round tower that was important in defending the border of The Pale. I plan to pay a visit and see whether there is anything to be done with it with a vacant property grant. Bet I could get that Ber rating right up there. <\/p>\n The National Monuments Service has an interactive historic environment viewer map that documents archaeological sites, monuments and heritage structures. The map is littered with red and blue dots that might be anything from a standing stone to a castle ruin. I\u2019m going to be flat out noticing things and finding them on the map. Castle blindness begone! <\/p>\n Zuckerberg\u2019s Waterford<\/a> castle grab is likely a status symbol acquisition, as much as it sits a handy-ish commute from Meta\u2019s headquarters in Dublin (I\u2019m sure he has his own helicopter at hand<\/a>). There aren\u2019t many regular Irish families who could afford to purchase, renovate and maintain a castle so, while it\u2019s always unsettling to see international billionaires buying up pieces of Irish history, the reality is that without these kinds of property deals, some of our most impressive structures would be in ruins like so many others.<\/p>\n![\"Emer](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/UDTDS2X3XDYBCWAB3YUFYXFTGU.jpg\")
Emer McLysaght: ‘Drimnagh Castle is less than a 10-minute drive from my house and to my great shame I have never visited.’ <\/p>\n