A towering achievement: Exploring Irish castles and beautiful buildings

Tarquin Blake’s history of Irish castles charts beautiful buildings and a grant-aid culture that goes back six centuries, writes Tommy Barker

AX breaks for building? Pshaw. Nothing new under the sun.

We’ve been doing it for years, centuries even, in Ireland. Five hundred years ago, a statute issued by Henry VI allowed £10 for every fortified tower built here, as he tried to keep the quarrelsome Irish at bay.