A drive around county Kilkenny- Three Castles to Castlecomer
10-03-2019
With traditional March weather forecast, we left the boat moored and took to the van for a road trip following some of the local rivers in Kilkenny. A grey start to the day brought a mixed bag of blinding sunshine, hail, rain, snow, sleet and vivid blue skys as the late morning unfolded. We started in the city and journeyed north west, roughly following the river Nore. It took us to Three Castles in the parish of Odagh in Co Kilkenny. Here the river had broke it banks and stretched far and wide across the green fields. In places, the Nore cut a strong flow as it pushed further out into the surrounding countryside. We parked on a dogleg bend and made our way up the moss covered steps to the Church and Castle of Three Castles. The graveyard was overgrown and the gate to the church, locked; but that didn’t stop us snapping a few pic’s. Picking back up the N78, we headed for Castlecomer, meeting the Dinin river at Dysart Bridge, just north of Julianstown, county Kilkenny. The river, like the Nore was in a large flood and pumping water between the old pillars which looked like they once took a rail line. A couple of yards north on the N78, a second bridge spans another river joining the Dinin. On the maps I’ve looked at both rivers are marked as the Dinin river. However, both travel in completely different directions so I would be interested to hear from anyone local that might be able to shed light on the situation. On google maps, the river flowing from Castlecomer is called the river Deen. But I wouldn’t put much faith in google in this regard. We then made our way into Castlecomer for lunch and a local lady told me that she always knew the river as being the Comer river. We had a fantastic lunch in the Lime Tree restaurant(and will certainly be back), and afterwards as we headed north out of the town, a pedestrian crossing the bridge near Castlecomer Discovery Park informed me that the river was just called the Dinan river. He proceeded to spell it out to highlight that it is not spelled Dinin. It was back onto the google machine and we discovered this link and the map below, which explained things a little further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Dinan
Pictures of our day out – From Three Castles to Castlecomer
0 Comments