Photo: Willie O’Reilly

Three years closed. Three hundred at the gates.

On Wednesday 30 September, three years to the day since Dunguaire Castle closed its doors, more than 300 people came to stand at its gates.

They came from the village and from the surrounding area. Families came with small children, neighbours came together, and plenty came with the dog. The weather did its worst, and nobody went home.

How the morning unfolded

At 11.45am, Eugene Lambe, one of Ireland's best-known uilleann pipers, began to play as people arrived. There's something about the pipes at Dunguaire. It felt less like a campaign event and more like the castle being welcomed back to life, even for an hour.

Transition Year students from Seamount College joined the crowd. They were in first year when the gates closed. In the three years since, a whole generation of Kinvara children has grown up with the castle on their doorstep and no way in, so it meant a great deal to have them there.

Eamonn Coy of Kinvara Community Council spoke about where things stand with the castle and the questions that remain unanswered: who owns it, what is happening with the land opposite, and whether there is a plan to reopen it. Fran O'Reilly of Kinvara Heritage Group, who has been driving this campaign from the beginning, was there too.

The morning closed with Maeve Cairney. From 2007 until the day the castle closed, Maeve sang at the Dunguaire banquets, and every night she sang Sally Gardens. On Wednesday she sang it again, standing at the locked gates of the castle where she'd sung it so many times inside. It was the moment of the day.

What this campaign has become

This campaign started in June 2026. It was set up by Kinvara Heritage Group and Kinvara Community Council, run by volunteers, with no budget and no big organisation behind it.

In three months:

• The campaign QR code has been scanned more than 8,000 times, from 443 cities in 55 countries

• Dunguaire's story has been covered by local, national and international media

• More than 300 people turned out on a wet Wednesday morning to stand at the gates

Five or six media outlets were there on the day, which means the message from Kinvara went a long way further than the castle road.

None of this happened because of one person. It happened because a community decided it wasn't going to let Dunguaire go quietly.

What happens next

The questions haven't changed. We want a clear timetable for reopening the castle. We want the land opposite secured for Kinvara and for Dunguaire's future. And we want answers on who is responsible for making that happen.

What has changed is that nobody can say this community doesn't care.

Thank you

To everyone who came out: thank you. To Eugene, Maeve, Eamonn and Fran, to the students and staff of Seamount College, and to the media who came to cover the day: thank you.

If you were there and took photos or video, we'd love to see them. Send them to us or tag us on social media.

And if you haven't yet, add your voice.

Photo: Thomas Quinn