Let’s not forget…
6 Likes
Dundrum?
2 Likes
Looks to be? I just did an image search for round keeps…
The only castles like that I’ve seen in person are like Blarney (because tourist traps are fun, damn it), this nearly complete ruin in Kinsale (right on the bay), and then castle Urqhart in Scotland…
5 Likes
I’ve never been to Blarney myself.
If castles float your boat a couple that are worth seeing are Trim Castle (near-ish to Dublin, but close to Newgrange), and Ashford castle (near Galway).
Grainne Mhaoil’s castle (County Mayo) is disappointingly small, but you can go up inside it. Don’t need to worry about any lines there!
6 Likes
There are some very cool abandoned concrete round homes in the Florida Keys/Everglades. I can’t find them thanks to search interference from Zillow and it’s fucking clones, but they look a bit like that metal one but perched on a central concrete tower just above sea level.
Maybe @FloridaManJefe knows what I’m blabbering about?
6 Likes
It’s been pretty well-preserved. The grounds are beautifully maintained and what’s left of the castle is nicely restored so you can walk around in it and up to the roof where the stone is… we have pictures of me and my spouse kissing the stone that looks just like a pics couple of my grandparents doing the same from the 80s (we went in 99).
One day, once this god forsaken pandemic is behind us, I really want to go to Ireland for at least several months and just travel around the country, just sort of aimlessly. I’d want to hit some touristy spots, of course, but mostly just kicking around with no real destination in mind, other than seeing the place. Being an American, it’s just kind of weird for me to think about there being structures that are so old…
But since we’ll never get out of this dumb pandemic, I guess Ireland is safe from yet another Irish American trying to reconnect with my roots!
I guess we got some forts out on the GA and FL coast, too… Seems like there are several places around the south where people tried to build a castle and then stopped?
9 Likes
There’s always the Campbell Castle from 1886 in Wichita, Kansas. It’s yours for $2.9 million. That’s the Little Arkansas River in the foreground, just a mile or so from where the Big Arkansas and Little Arkansas join up.
8 Likes
It’s weird that we don’t call Biltmore Estates a castle, because it basically is…
I guess it’s more in the French chateau style? But still…
11 Likes
I mean, thick, fortified walls…it has them.
4 Likes
Yup! Or yurt… 
3 Likes
I’ve toured it once, and it’s huge. An amazing library…
5 Likes
Monuments to monopoly, castles of capitalism… 
. I had fun touring mansions in Newport, RI:
4 Likes
you mean Stiltsville?
those houses are all gone now.
there may be one or two in the glades used for fishing camps, but you can’t live in them. (doesn’t mean some old cracker isn’t, however.)
4 Likes
Stiltsville was cool, but it’s not what I was thinking of. Maybe it’s over on the Naples side?
ETA: Found it. It’s the Dome Homes south of Marco Island:
10 Likes
Now that looks like a carpentry challenge… 
8 Likes
just came back to post this. Cape Romano Dome House off of Marco Island. very cool!
haven’t seen it myself, but thought the history of it (according to Wikipedia) sounds interesting.
ETA: Wiki link:
8 Likes
Yeah, I’d definitely describe that as a Loire château imitation, not a castle
A faux château?
6 Likes
Dontcha know!
3 Likes
If it has thick walls, and dominates the surrounding area, it’s probably a castle.
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle , but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a residence for royalty or nobility; from a pleasance which was a walled-in residence for nobility, but not adequately fortified;[a] and from a fortified settlement, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Use of the term has varied over time and has been applied to structures as diverse as hill forts and country houses. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace.
4 Likes
