Dunguaire Castle

A compact sixteenth-century tower house on a rocky spur beside Galway Bay near Kinvara, built by the Hynes clan on the site of an earlier royal residence of the kings of Connacht. Restored in the twentieth century, it became a gathering place for writers of the literary revival who were drawn to the area. Its four storeys, defensive walls and bawn make it a textbook example of the fortified tower houses that dot the west. The setting at the water's edge, mirrored in the bay at high tide, is among the most photographed in the region.