If the mansion of Sunset Boulevard was instead a castle in Ireland, then I'd very much expect it to look somewhat like Kilcolgan Castle.

The grounds is very beautiful, especially when lit up and viewed from across the lake. Inside, it has its charms in a forgotten sort of way, something of a mausoleum of family history, and is unfortunately in need of some serious updating. Certain features seem to have fallen into disrepair, and rather than a presumably expensive fix, a replacement has been put up in addition to that now inoperable feature.

Admittedly it is an old building, and with that comes moths. On the first morning we awoke to moths in the bedrooms and despite killing each moth we saw, we would awake each successive morning thereafter without fail to what seemed to be an increasing number of unwanted visitors. In fact, on the last morning of our stay, we killed no less than six moths that somehow ended up trapped in the bedroom and attached bathroom with us. Because of this, we felt safer on our stay keeping our suitcases zipped and many of belongings in the car to avoid bringing home an infestation with us.

With that said, we could not feel physically safer within the grounds. Our hosts were very respectful of our space in that sense, with Karen being a very friendly host, although we rarely saw much of her perhaps owing to the hours we kept. Grizzly, her dog, was perhaps the highlight of our stay, greeting us every morning and night without fail.

While not quite what we had expected, Kilcolgan Castle is quite an interesting character unto itself. The inescapable atmosphere it contains will always be a defining feature of our first visit to Ireland.