"Mysterious Dun Aengus" Top 5 Page for this destination Inishmore Travelogue by Alain_Smeets

Cliffs at Dun Aengus (photo Dirk Driesmans)

Before you enter the side of Dun Aengus, you have to park your bike at the visitor centre and pay the entrance fee. You can find already a lot of info about the fort when you look at the displays. The walk towards Dun Aengus is uphill and a bit hard if you are not used to it. So I know now that my condition is not as good as it was. When you walk towards the top, you can’t see Dun Aengus, the only thing that you see are some walls around the central construction.

Dun Aengus (photo Dirk Driesmans)

When you enter through the opening of the interior wall, you see the inner square with the central construction and you see that the walls end on the cliffs. The land stops there and then there is the sky. We went to have a look at the cliffs and the sea beneath us, oh my they are high and I am keeping a safe distance due to my fear of heights. But you can see the cliffs of Moher from here. Haha, yes again from a distance.

Cliffs at Dun Aengus (photo Dirk Driesmans)

You can enter this one via one open door and then you stand in a closed surrounding and one thing you notice is the big stone in the middle of the construction. So is Dun Aengus a fort or a place where they did some mythical rites on that natural stone? Who knows, I don’t but what I see when I look around is that you don’t have a clear overview over the island when you are at Dun Aengus. But it looks very impressive and I can’t keep enough of looking towards the cliffs from a save distance.

Cliffs at Dun Aengus (photo Dirk Driesmans)

Almost all, no all tourists who visit Inishmore go to this place and there are then also a lot of people around. But we went in the afternoon and most people are then already on their way back towards the ferry.

Sunlight shattering in the water.

I noticed that the sun was having a strange effect on the ocean. It was as there were hundreds of candles burning in the deep and that they were dancing and moving. It was like they burned them in honour of their ancestors. Or where this the lost souls of all the fallen Irishmen that lost their lives in defending Dun Aengus. What one can think about when one sees the sun shattering on the waves.

Cliffs at Dun Aengus (photo Dirk Driesmans)

The fort made a very big impression on us and when we saw some of the defences around the fort, we knew that it wasn’t easy to attack this place. But it’s amazing that one can build this kind of constructions in so early times. It reminds me a bit about the Great Zimbabwe monument in Masvingo. Dun Aengus, full of history.