Leighlinbridge —County Carlow

Much of the town of Leighlinbridge on the River Barrow has the air of an earlier century, with its ruined castle standing guard over the 14th century bridge and the old malt houses rising behind it. The town's original Black Castle, built in 1181, was one of the earliest Norman fortresses in Ireland. It was granted to John de Claville by Hugh de Lacy, the powerful Norman baron who governed Ireland for Henry II. The present castle was built by Sir Edward Bellingham in 1547 and fell to Cromwell's forces in 1650.
The wonderful nine-arched bridge across the Barrow is the oldest on the river. It was built in 1320 by Maurice Jakis, a canon of Kildare Cathedral, to facilitate movement within his diocese. The bridge was widened in 1789 and the careful observer can see signs of this work.
Leighlinbridge has produced many famous sons. The dashing Captain Myles Keogh, of the Battle of Little Big Horn fame, was born there, as were Cardinal Patrick Moran (1830 - 1911), Archbishop of Sydney and Australia's first cardinal, and Professor John Tyndall (1820 - 1893), a brilliant physicist, who, in 1867 succeeded Michael Faraday as President of the Royal Institution in London. Among many other achievements, Tyndall explained why the sky looks blue. The ancestors of Canada's former Premier Martin Brian Mulroney also hail from Leighlinbridge.