Dalkey or Deilginis, is a very prosperous seaside suburb of Dublin, which I knew previously from having a great love of Flann O'Brien, he wrote a lovely mad novel 'The Dalkey Archive', which like all of his work defies explanation really!
This area's home to lots of genius celebs, not least fab film director Neil Jordan & writer Maeve Binchy.
I came here with a mate on the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport), from Dublin's Connolly Station, and it took us around 30 minutes. We'd been after visiting James Joyce's Martello tower from Ulysses, at nearby Sandycove but that was closed, so we walked along the coast past the "Fortyfoot", (a legendary point for swimming), and after a short walk exploring found ourselves in the centre of an attractive little village with shiny bars & expensive looking shops, and also a castle at the end of the street.
I've always loved medieval castles, and hadn't had a castle fix for a while, so after a bit of refreshment we made for Dalkey's Castle.
Strictly speaking this is a fifteenth century fortified Town House, known as the Goat Castle. A very friendly & informative lady called Margaret gave us an introduction to Dalkey, before Eoghan the Archer descended on us, (it was just the two of us), for a spot of living history!
We were taken by "Eoghan", up into Goat Castle, and in character he gave us the guided tour, which eventually takes us to the roof. There was a great bit of banter between Eoghan & my mate about the marauding O'Byrnes and O'Tooles of Wicklow, (he was as an O'Rourke eventually accepted as being "friendly")!
Other characters appear, a kind of Baldrick-like serf, (the actor looking a lot like a young Cyril Cusack), with horrible tales about the cooking, and a maid servant with equally horrible tales about medieval medicine. She was especially good. It must have been hard for them with it just being the two of us, but they more than justified their paypackets, and our €6 admission.
After this you can look at an intersting exhibition on Dalkey writers with interesting stuff on James Joyce & Flann O'Brien,
and there's the adjoining ruins of a tenth century Church & Graveyard dedicated to St Begnet.
They've gone to a lot of trouble here, and it's a very friendly, fun & absorbing environment. read more