Castle Balfour

The name Castle Balfour inspires images of a huge forbidding castle and I was hoping that I would see something like that. The village of Lisnaskea wasn’t too far from Enniskillen. I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t along the main road of the village, we made a turn off the main road and just head straight to the castle. The castle is actually near the side of the Holy Trinity Church which is right beside the castle. The castle unfortunately, is not much of a castle anymore. It follows the fate of a lot of castles I have seen in Ireland. The castle no longer has a roof and much of the site is in ruins.

Castle Balfour is a typical Scottish castle where it looks more like a mansion rather than a stereotypical castle. Perhaps, it is my perception of a castle which needs to change since most of the castles in Ireland look like this. The castle was named after Michael Balfour who was granted the land here. The castle was most probably built in the 1600s, it was occupied by the English until it was burned down. It is not allowed to enter the castle itself. But visitors can go around the block and see how it looks like. It appears there it used to have towers but they are no longer there. It would have probably been an impressive castle in its prime.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/CastleBalfour.kmz} zoom=19]