We HAD to leave a review for this wonderful place! We were visiting from California, and we enjoyed…read moreour time here tremendously. We brought our 8 and 10 year old kids, thinking we'd just see the animals really quickly. But, we ended up spending over 4 hours! We ate breakfast at the Overends Kitchen, and it was fantastic! Then we watched them collect chicken eggs and milk cows. So cool!! Then we walked around visiting adorable cows, calves, sheep, donkeys, and sheep! There were beautiful flower gardens and amazing trails that were so fun with the kids! They also had a fun playground!! There were so many other things to enjoy here that we didn't get to, but we absolutely loved our visit. We wish we lived in the area so we could visit more!

Oh what a day it was......... I needed to evade the house cleaning binge my better looking half was…read moreon so what better way than to remove myself from the situation entirely and bring the little one to the farm. Great location just over 5 minutes stroll from Dundrum shopping centre and the luas stop. It began with a cupcake, ( it was awesome) then continued with rain. Luckily I was well prepared with wellies and waterproofs......... for the child. I unfortunately looked like a dog who fell in a well by the end of the day. The chickens were first and full of life and head bobbing joy, then on to the calves. This is where the fun started. My daughter began to harass the young things to say moo..... "SAY MOO COWS!!!! SAYYYY MOOOOOOOO" they proceeded to chew and blink............unimpressed. Everybody else however got a few giggles out of it. Then the pigs. Where the girl said " DO NOT under any circumstances put your fingers in. pigs WILL EAT that meat." My fearless soldier girl promptly put her entire hand in and started stroking the BIG and I mean BIG mammy pigs head whilst I nearly took a heart attack pulling her hand back out. Then the goats were the best part........... it was raining heavily by now.... there was no shelter nearby........ but giving the goats grass from our hands was the only thing she wanted to do, not even the lure of the ever amazing Mcdonalds could pull the 2 year old away from the beasts. All in all twas an odd day but I loved it! They also had some beautiful gardens and displays...... Well worth a visit for all the family members...... unless they are on a spring cleaning blitz. Then leave them at home, it worked for me!

What a fabulous tour of a castle still going through renovations. Most of the grounds have been…read morerestored and most rooms of the castle are restored and open to tour. There are additional outbuildings they will restore over the upcoming years. The gardens are beautiful with medicinal and culinary herbs, plus apple trees on the property. We didn't get to do the guided tour, but we got plenty of details from the owner on the history and some of the details. This was so much better than the Dublin Castle and it is the only functional moat around a castle anywhere in Ireland.

Had a guided tour here for €4.50. Excellent value. The castle has plenty of history and is well…read moreworth a visit. It is the only moated castle in Ireland. A duck named George lives in the moat. The gardens are beautiful and the tour guide was really really good. A number of movies used the castle as a location, such as Ella Enchanted and the Tudors. You can rent the main hall for occasions such as weddings and I'd imagine they would be spectacular. Really worth a visit.

Highly recommend checking out this oddity! It is a tree eating a bench! You will never see anything…read moreelse like it!

This really is a fun landmark to check out. The hungry tree is named so because it is eating a…read morebench! It is found in the beautiful grounds of Kings Inn, it's makes for a great photo opportunity, just don't get too close to the tree or you could be gobbled up next... I know, cheesy but I had to get that in.

Not a business, strictly speaking, but a very nice 13th century Castle nonetheless. The best…read moretourism is free and this completely uncommercialised castle makes a nice change from some of the other brochure stands around the country. You could even make a day of it with a trip down to the Purty Kitchen, famous for its seafood, or any of the other restaurants in Monkstown village. Watch out though, kids like to drink in the Castle at night and they can give you no end of grief-the cheaky chappies.

Ireland is replete with ruined castles. It's the first thing that many visitors (particularly…read moreAmericans and Australians...200 years of history? Pah!) comment on, and something we Irish tend to take for granted. Monkstown Castle is one such place. Randomly perched on the edge of a roundabout, opposite CBC and next to the tennis club, most people don't even bother giving it a second look (except those wily teenagers always on the lookout for a good drinking spot). Apparently, however, it dates from the 12th/13th century, which makes it pretty frickin' old. And it is just kind of cool to have that history dotted around the landscape of a suburb. Of course, that could just be me...

Hellfire Club. What a fucking badass name. I bet all the other drinking societies wish that they…read morehad of come up with a bitchin' name like that. The origins of the cool name date back to the early 18th century, when a man named William Connolly built a hunting lodge on the site of a cairn, stones of which were used in the lodge's construction. When a storm blew the roof off, superstitious locals believed it to be some sort of divine retribution for the desecration of the cairn, and that the site would be forever cursed etc etc etc... What the Hellfire Club actually consisted of was a place where the English gentry could get sozzled and ride a few brazzers in the company of their social equals. The natives, no doubt suspecting that these English toffs were up to all sorts of Masonic shit as well, started telling stories of satanic rites, with black cats being sacrificed and allsorts. It's nice to see that Ireland's historical traditions are being revived by the young generations. Southside goths do this by having knacker drinking sessions in the ruins of the building, drawing demonic symbols that they learned from Buffy on the walls for the craic, then freaking out at the sight of those same signs later on, whilst on their second tab of acid. The syphilis-demented aristocrats of yesteryear would be proud of our nation's youths' exploits.

It's a Sunday afternoon and wifey decides to pull the kids away from TV and Lego to go on a quick…read morehike "I don't want to go.. .Scooby Do is on the TV and I want to play!!" My wife looks at me with undisguised distain, "look, the kids are happily getting ready to go, act you age and get ready too". Grumbling, I get out of my chair, turn the TV off and put my coat on. In truth I have always wondered what the place was like - having heard many rumours and stories when I was younger. lots of sadistic masses and naked women is what I was hoping for but after about 40 mins walking up hills and through forests we reached the old hunting lodge and not a naked woman was to be found. Instead we find a clearly very old building, completely open to the public (usually such places are barricaded up and closed), where you can wander around and marvel at the piles of broken bottles and used condoms. The view from the top of the mountain (and from the windows of the lodge) is spectacular - and well worth the trek. I can picture us doing it again in the summer for a picnic, it would be ideal. Worth noting - the car-park at the bottom of the mountain is very small, you'll probably end up parking on the side of the road, which is never particularly advisable!

Pretty building. Free tours on first Wednesdays. Had a little audio tour and got to learn some…read morehistory of the building.

Spectacular neo-classical 18th century building on the River Liffey. Today, it houses the…read moreDepartment of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government / An Roinn Tithíochta, Pleanála, Pobail agus Rialtais Áitiúil. But I had no business there. I simply admired a beautiful building. Originally used for customs collection due to its proximity to the Port of Dublin, it got other uses as the port moved further down river. Lovely to look at, up close or from across the River.

Its a easy experience to go through, beautiful castle with free lockers to store backpacks.read more

Dublin Castle was originally built in the early 1200s as a medieval fortress under the instruction…read moreof King John of England. For centuries, it was the headquarters of English (and eventually British) rule in Ireland. In 1684, a large fire destroyed a large portion of the castle. Instead of matching the original Gothic style, most of it was rebuilt using a Georgian style, similar to what you'd find in the French Palace of Versailles! It's quite the contrast. When you visit Dublin Castle, you can choose to explore it in two ways: with a self-guided tour to the state apartments or with a scheduled guided tour that visits the Viking Excavation, the Chapel Royal, and the State Apartments. When you first enter the courtyard, you'll immediately see the newer Georgian architecture in the neat red brick buildings surrounding the square. From the 13th century to the early 20th century, the castle was under British control. It served from being a royal palace and parliament to a prison. Dublin Castle was eventually handed over to General Michael Collins on the 16th of January in 1922. Collins was a soldier and a politician who lead the Irish people through their fight for Independence Dublin Castle plays a huge role in Ireland's history and a walk around the grounds is time well spent. Today the castle is a government complex and tourist attraction. Stroll through the famous Chester Beatty Library if time permits