Clonmines

Clonmines is one of my favorite spots in Ireland and one we were not supposed to go to. Sshh! We were driving beside the road and said, “what is that!” and we just had to see it. It turned out to be a medieval town, established by William Marshal, the great knight and Lord of Leinster, as an alternative port to one already established. What’s incredible about Clonmines is the way it is so intact. One of the things we remarked upon as we were traveling throughout the country was how few medieval sites there were. Clearly there is a variety of reasons for this, which I won’t go into today. Clonmines survival may in part be due to the fact that it is on private land. To be perfectly frank, we trespassed, if inadvertently, to take these pictures. The Read more…