Rock of Dunamase
The Rock of Dunamase is a dramatic rocky outcrop rising from the midland plain of County Laois, crowned with the ruins of a medieval castle that was one of the most strategically important fortifications in Leinster. Fortified since at least the Iron Age, the castle was associated with Dermot MacMurrough and passed to the Normans through the marriage of his daughter Aoife to Strongbow in 1169. Subsequently held by the Marshal earls of Pembroke and the de Mortimer family, the castle was destroyed in the 1650s during the Cromwellian wars. The scale of the surviving walls, the complexity of the gatehouse and outer ward, and the extraordinary hilltop setting make Dunamase one of the most atmospheric castle sites in Ireland, freely accessible and managed by the Office of Public Works.