Glenarm Castle: Six Centuries of the McDonnell Earls, Among the Glens of Antrim In the 1920s, a fire broke out at Glenarm Castle — allegedly started in an attempt to keep the 11th Earl of Antrim's featherless parrot warm. The castle had to be substantially...
Carrickfergus Castle: Ireland's Greatest Norman Fortress, Above Belfast Lough In 1315, Robert the Bruce's brother Edward invaded Ireland with an army and besieged Carrickfergus Castle. The siege went on so long, and provisions ran so completely dry, that the...
Kinbane Castle: The White Head Castle at the End of 140 Steps, Above the Atlantic Kinbane means "white head" in Irish — Caisleán Ceinn Bán — and the name is immediately clear to anyone who looks at the limestone headland on which the castle stands: the cliff...
Hillsborough Castle: Where Northern Ireland's Peace Was Made, Twenty Minutes from Belfast In 1771, Wills Hill — the first Marquess of Downshire, one of the most powerful men in British colonial politics — received Benjamin Franklin at Hillsborough Castle. The...
Dunluce Castle: The Clifftop Ruin Where Game of Thrones Met Narnia, Above the Antrim Coast In 1588, a Spanish Armada ship called the Girona wrecked on the rocks near Dunluce Castle. The MacDonnell clan — who had controlled the castle since the 1550s — salvaged the...
Craig y Nos Castle: The Victorian Opera Star Who Built Her Own Theatre in the Brecon Beacons Adelina Patti was the most celebrated opera singer of the Victorian era — a soprano who commanded the largest fees in the world and whose voice filled La Scala in Milan,...
Gwrych Castle: Gothic Revival Ruin, WWII Refuge and Wales's Most Unexpected TV Star In 1940, as Nazi Germany occupied much of Europe, a group of Jewish young people arrived at a ruined Gothic Revival castle on the North Wales coast. Gwrych Castle — already...
Pembroke Castle: Where Henry VII Was Born, Above a Prehistoric Cave Beneath Pembroke Castle, in the limestone bedrock on which the fortress stands, there is a cave. Wogan Cavern is a prehistoric chamber that was occupied by early humans long before any castle existed...
Craigievar Castle: The Pink Tower That Danzig Willy Built, Rising Above Aberdeenshire William Forbes made his fortune trading with the Baltic port of Danzig — now Gdańsk in Poland — in the early years of the 17th century. So successful was his trade that he became...