Castles are for keeps

Tommy Barker says you can buy Belvelly Castle for €375,000.

WHAT is it about castles and Munster? In many other parts of the country castles do what they generally are allowed to do, ie slowly decline into a state of gracious old age, then dereliction, and then end up how they began, as a pile of random stones.

Not so down south, where castle renovations, and even castle building, has reached heights unseen in 500 years or more.