Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland

Once we had warmed up and dried off at the Tea Room, we headed for the Dunluce Castle, just outside.  The castle is, of course, in ruins but enough of it stands today to get a great sense of how magnificent it must have been.  The archeaolgical work that has been done on this site is not complete but they know quite a bit about it and the Visitor's Center is very good.  The rain had pretty much stopped although the wind continued to blow.

Our guidebook had told us that the castle was inhabited only until 1637 where half of the kitchen fell into the sea in the middle of dinner one night - along with many of the servants.  The family living in the castle supposedly moved out just after that.

Although the kitchen did eventually fall into the sea, it apparently really happened much later - sometime in the mid 1800s, but it was an interesting story which helped make the castle come alive to us.

We all took a zillion pictures. Here are but a few.

There was a single draw bridge to get the castle, which stood perched high on he cliff above the water.

The castle had too many occupants over the years for us to keep track of - they kept capturing and re-capturing it.

It stands on a magnificent cliff high above the water.  A truly amazing location.
Below is the view to the west from what is left of the kitchen.

And here is the view to the east.  It is hard to imagine how people managed to scale the walls and take over the castle, but apparently they did.

The coast is very rugged, to say the least.