By Declan Noone, Driver-Guide, Luxury Irish Tours
I’ve brought guests to plenty of castles around Ireland over the years. This was the first time I helped build a bridge so they could get into one.
I’m Declan Noone, one of the driver-guides with Luxury Irish Tours, and recently I had the pleasure of touring Ireland with the Zeigler family, who had travelled over from New Jersey and New York.
They were a great crowd to have in the vehicle and an especially interesting family to tour. We covered plenty of Ireland together, had some great weather along the way, they played a couple of Ireland’s best golf courses, and ate plenty of great Irish food between the brilliant destinations and activities.
But there was one afternoon in County Clare that was always going to be a little different. There was a castle involved. Their castle.
A castle with quite a history
Cratloe Moyle Castle stands in County Clare, not far from the main road between Limerick and Ennis. Plenty of people have probably driven past without ever knowing much about the old tower house sitting there. Its story goes back a long way. What I have learned about it and what I can tell you about it is the following…
Cratloe Moyle is a five-storey tower house associated with the MacNamara family, one of the great families of medieval County Clare, and is generally dated to around the late 15th or early 16th century. Its more recent history is unusual too. As Bob explained it to me, his father, an Irish-American, acquired the castle in 1973. The area around Cratloe Moyle changed considerably in the decades that followed, with surrounding land later sold to Bearing Components Ltd, while the castle itself remained separately owned.
So for Bob and the Zeigler family, this wasn’t a case of putting another Irish castle on the sightseeing list. There was a genuine family connection to the place. The only problem was that Cratloe Moyle isn’t exactly Ashford Castle. There’d be no pulling up at the front door and handing somebody the luggage.
First, we had to get them there
The castle had been sitting largely unattended and the area immediately around it had become very overgrown. There were fields and hedges to contend with. Access needed clearing. There were cattle grazing around the castle area. Even getting comfortably from one point to another wasn’t as straightforward as you might imagine. So before Bob and the family arrived, there was a fair bit happening behind the scenes.
Claire Spain and Aisling Hoary from the Luxury Irish Tours team did a huge amount of the planning and organising, and a few of us got involved in getting the place ready. We arranged for a tractor to cut the field around the castle. Overgrown areas and hedges were cut back. We cleared and shaped a walkway so the family could get in comfortably. The cattle had to be moved away from the castle area.
And then there was the small matter of access across one awkward section… So we built a wooden bridge! I can safely say that isn’t on the checklist for every tour I do, but that’s what was needed here.
The point wasn’t to transform Cratloe Moyle into a visitor attraction. That would have defeated the purpose entirely. It is an old, ruined tower house and that’s part of its character. We simply wanted to make it possible for Bob and his family to get in safely, spend proper time there and enjoy a place that belonged to their family’s story.
An afternoon at the Zeigler’s castle
Once the practical work was done, Claire and Aisling had thought about what would happen when the family actually arrived too. We set up an area where everybody could sit together and arranged some drinks and snacks so there was no rush to leave. A local musician and storyteller joined us for the afternoon as well, bringing a bit of local history, storytelling and music into the day. That made a massive difference.
Instead of driving to the castle, taking a few photographs and moving on again, the Zeiglers could actually spend an afternoon there. They could sit down. Look around. Hear some of the history. Listen to traditional Irish music. Chat. Be present in the moment they had been months planning and thinking about. All of this beneath the castle that, today, bears the Ziegler family name.
For me, that was what made the whole thing work. I’ve visited plenty of remarkable places with guests over the years, but normally somebody else has already created the experience. There’s a road in, a car park, an entrance, somebody waiting to meet us and a plan for what happens next. There was none of that at Cratloe Moyle. This time, we had to create the conditions for the family to simply spend time somewhere that mattered to them, and I have to say, it was a very enjoyable and special afternoon to be part of.
Sometimes this is what a private tour looks like
People probably have a certain picture in their head when they think about a private luxury tour of Ireland.
Five-star hotels. A Mercedes outside. Great restaurants. Golf. Castles.
And, to be fair, the Zeiglers had plenty of those things on their trip too.
But the Cratloe Moyle day is probably a better example of what a genuinely private tour can sometimes involve.
It isn’t necessarily about making everything luxurious. Sometimes it’s about somebody telling us: “This particular place matters to my family.” And then figuring out what needs to happen to get them there.
In this case, the answer happened to involve a tractor, a bit of strimming, moving cattle and building a bridge! If there’s one thing I’ve experienced myself, it’s that every tour is very different.
We covered some touring ground too
The castle was obviously a very particular part of the Zeiglers’ time in Ireland, but it certainly wasn’t the only highlight. We covered a fair bit of the country together, including Kinsale, Killarney and the Ring of Kerry. Golf was a big part of the trip too, and they managed two crackers. They played Old Head on an absolutely spectacular sunny day. Anyone who knows Old Head will know how lucky that is. It’s an incredible golf course in any weather, but with blue skies and the Atlantic around you, there aren’t many better places to play golf.
They also got to play Ballybunion. The weather wasn’t quite as spectacular that day, but that didn’t seem to bother them too much. They thoroughly enjoyed both courses.
While the men were golfing, I took the ladies out around Dingle and the Slea Head Drive. We somehow managed another beautiful day. I won’t claim any responsibility for that part.
It’s hard to beat Slea Head when the weather plays ball. The Atlantic, the Blasket Islands, the mountains and those narrow roads winding around the peninsula make it one of those parts of Ireland where even the journey itself becomes the attraction. Between that, Killarney, the Ring of Kerry and everything else we covered, the family got a good taste of the southwest as well as their time in Clare.
And the Irish food got plenty of praise
One thing the Zeiglers mentioned more than once was the quality of the food.
That’s something I hear quite a bit from American guests. People sometimes arrive with one idea of what Irish food is going to be and are pleasantly surprised by just how well you can eat around the country now.
For the Zeiglers, one of the standouts was lunch at Monks Ballyvaughan. Seafood in Ballyvaughan isn’t a bad way to spend lunchtime, and Monks went down particularly well with this crowd.
The whole team including myself hopes we’ll see them return
Bob spoke about coming back to Ireland again at some stage, although there are no immediate plans to restore Cratloe Moyle. For now, the castle remains what it is; An old County Clare tower house with hundreds of years of history behind it and, in the Zeiglers’ case, a much more recent family story attached to it too.
I drive guests past castles all over Ireland. Some are beautifully restored hotels. Some are major visitor attractions. Some are ruins sitting quietly in fields. But every so often, one means something completely different to the people sitting behind me in the vehicle. That’s one of the things I enjoy about this job.
You can start a tour knowing very little about a family, and after a few days on the road together you understand the stories behind why they’re here, the places that matter to them and what they’re really hoping to get from their time in Ireland.
The Zeiglers were a great crowd to spend the trip with. Between the castle, the golf, Kerry, Clare, the food and everything else we managed to fit in, it’s certainly one I’ll remember.
I’ve no idea when I’ll next have to help build a bridge before bringing guests to a castle. Hopefully not next week, but if I do, at least I’ll know where to start.
Declan Noone
Driver-Guide, Luxury Irish Tours
