Roscrea Golf Club

We played here yesterday much later then we normally do. They were having an open competition and we put our names down for around 2:30pm (with it being a Sunday Clive wanted to go to church). When we arrived there were no other people down to play with us and what with it being a fourball competition we were out of luck. But we were there to play golf and the chap we spoke to gave us the green fee at the open price of €15 each, which we weren’t complaining about.

Roscrea is an 18 hole parkland course in County Tipperary. It has been there since around 1911 but has only been 18 holes since the mid 1990s. The weather was still looking unpleasant. It was less windy than yesterday but in its place was a light, steady rain. Wet gear on, we headed for the first tee.

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Redwood Castle and Abbeys

After golf we did a bit of a drive around and found a couple of Abbeys at Lorrha and also Redwood Castle. The abbeys were as expected, in ruins but well preserved. Not much else to say about them really.

The castle, however, was very impressive and was visible from a good distance away. We went through the gates and had a look around. It seemed to be either occupied or at least used in some way but there were no signs to indicate as much. So Clive stopped a tractor and we got some of the background from its driver.

It belonged to the MacEgans and up until around 30 years ago it was an ivy-covered ruin. But it was sold (I can’t remember to whom) and restored to the fine specimen it is today. I think it’s a private residence. The tractor driver told us that it was open in the summer for a couple of months and that the insides were well worth seeing.

If we’re in the area again we will certainly check it out.