Ballaghmore Castle — Attraction in The Municipal District of Borris-in-Ossory — Mountmellick

Traveling from the United States to explore castles, we arrived at one particular castle where we were met with an unexpectedly unfriendly woman. She immediately got onto us about where we parked. Sign said to ring doorbell for questions we did just that. As we inquired about the admission fee, a woman confronted us with rudeness, insisting that we provide our first and last names. We explained that we were simply there to purchase tickets for a tour. In response, she made a remark about how we are very American!

In response to her comment: We obviously didn’t see the sign, and as we left, we saw the sign, and it’s not large at all; it’s very small. We are not rude Americans; we are very respectful, which is why half of us didn’t get out of the car—to respect the fact that we were not 100% sure how to get tickets and wanted to make sure we were in the right spot. Let me add that we didn’t buy tickets not because they were expensive, but because you were so mean and rude to us. We didn’t come all the way from America not to tour castles. I will add one more thing: as this lady was being rude and my husband said, “Thank you, but we will pass,” she then shut my car door on me as a backseat passenger who didn’t say one...

Really glad we entered into this castle we found on google as I typed in castles in Laois as I have a really big interest in the structures, design, stories and people who own and run or have done so in the past locally and nationwide. Grace as she liked to be called was the owner of this wonderful castle located on the border of Borris in Ossory and Roscrea. This castle has deep history attached to it as I found out so much fascinating and interesting facts from this lady who is the proud owner of this castle since 1990, and once owned by the King of Ossory. Ossory was in fact one of the 5 ancient roads to the Hill of Tara seated by the high kings of Ireland dating back thousands of years. There are trees on this site dating over 500 years old and a purposely built river flowing underneath the castle itself which was used as a means of survival incase they were being invaded. I learnt so much off this wonderful character, including information of my local history, the meaning of names, events in Ireland's history and in the many stories of the restoration of the castle itself Will return, hopefully in the summertime as suggested as we were leaving after the very interesting tour...

We were on our way towards Killorglin from Dublin, when we suddenly saw this stone tower besides the road. We decided to stop and learn more about it, when we to our great surprise discovered that this was not a tower in the normal sense, but a stone house where parties could overnight. This would be an excellent place for groups who want something more historical than modern. It had bedrooms on two floors, a big living room on one floor and an eating hall on one floor. The owner showed us around, giving us an interesting historical lecture at the same time. The owner has put a lot of work in renoverating the place. Absolutely worth a visit if you are interested in...