The best-known castles and palaces in Ireland
Ordered by how much has been written about each place. The numbers match the map.
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Dublin and its edges hold a cluster: Dublin Castle (around 1200) 2 km from the center, Malahide Castle in its own town, Howth Castle 9 km from Malahide, Monkstown Castle by Dún Laoghaire. Navan is the base for Trim Castle Keep, Slane Castle and Dunsany Castle, all within 14 km. In the west, Bunratty Castle is 13 km from Limerick, Thoor Ballylee 26 km from Galway; the Rock of Cashel is 22 km from Clonmel.
RLQuest knows 749 named castles in Ireland, though only 173 have a Wikipedia article; a great many carry a family name. Ireland also has 503 ruins, 189 megalithic tombs and 67 lighthouses with pages here. Reaching a castle for the first time counts in the app, and the walk there, confirmed by your route, fills in the map behind you.
Every dot is a place. The numbers mark the highlights listed below.
Ordered by how much has been written about each place. The numbers match the map.
A selection, best known first, with the nearest larger town next to each.
and 697 more
RLQuest knows these places too. Which means:
Some of your daily quests lead to a real place near you. The app uses your location to check you were really there.
If you're the first person in RLQuest to complete a quest at a place, it's your first find. The Place Book shows you which kinds of place you're still missing.
Every walk uncovers tiles, each about 350 m across. Over time you can see which corners you know well, and where you've never set foot.
Place data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License. Borders: geoBoundaries (CC BY 4.0); Canada: Statistics Canada. As of 2026-10-02. The list shows the places RLQuest knows and isn't complete. Photos come from Wikimedia Commons; author and license are credited on each photo.
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