Perched on a limestone outcrop above the village of Doolin in north Clare, Ballynalacken Castle is one of the more striking medieval survivors in the Burren. On a clear day, the views from its walls take in the Aran Islands and the full sweep of Galway Bay.

The castle’s origins lie with the O’Connor clan, who controlled this part of the Burren from an early date. In the late fourteenth century, a chieftain named Lochlan MacCon O’Connor is credited with building or rebuilding a fortress here. The present tower house – a well-preserved six-storey structure with a narrow eastern section housing the spiral stair and private chambers, and a broader western portion containing the main halls – dates to the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. By 1564 the O’Connors had lost their grip on the territory, and by the mid-1580s the castle had formally passed to Sir Turlough O’Brien, who was made High Sheriff of Clare in 1578 and at his peak controlled over two thousand acres and numerous castles across the Burren. When the threat of the Spanish Armada reached Irish shores, it was Sir Turlough who was given licence to arrest and question any Spaniards found in the area.

The ruins stand today beside a nineteenth-century country house hotel, and while the castle itself is not publicly accessible, it can be viewed from the grounds.

It is near the castle entrance that a shadowy female figure has been reported by a number of witnesses over the years. She appears to linger rather than move through – standing, waiting, as though expecting someone who has not yet arrived. No identity has been attached to her, and nothing in the castle’s documented history accounts for her presence in any obvious way. Whether she belongs to the O’Connor era, the O’Brien years, or something more recent entirely, remains unknown.