Round up the family for trip to times past in the Castletown Round House

Colette Keane leaves the world of wifi behind to enjoy a taste of times past in a 200-year-old heritage building.

Everyone’s life is so busy now. Work is never really far away as a result of smart phones and tablet computers constantly reminding you that yet another work email has arrived and even though you might be on a holiday, the temptation to look at it and get involved in its contents is like trying to resist the draw of a powerful magnet. So when the chance came to go to a heritage home with no wifi or TV and really leave it all behind, I jumped at it.

Castletown Round House in Cellbridge, Co Kildare, is a heritage building under the care of the Irish Landmark Trust, which is a non-profit organisation that finds interesting and unusual buildings in need of conservation and gives them a new lease of life. Since 1992, it has turned 25 historic buildings into truly special self-catering holiday homes, ranging from lighthouses and schoolhouses, to castles and gate lodges.