Rathfarnham Castle

A fortified house on the southern edge of Dublin, built in the 1580s for an Elizabethan archbishop with squat corner towers designed to resist artillery. In the eighteenth century its interiors were transformed into elegant Georgian salons by leading architects, layering refinement over the earlier defensive shell. The contrast between the militarised exterior and the neoclassical rooms within makes it unusual. Now surrounded by suburb and set in a small park, the restored castle is open for guided tours of its varied phases.