Old Slains Castle

A strange and eerie atmosphere presides at the Old Castle of Slains. Some parts of this extensive ruin defying reason and nature on a clifftop promontory, are around four centuries old, and the site was the inspiration for the Transylvanian castle in Bram Stoker's Dracula. The remains of the tiny fishing village of Slains are still visible; three old cottages remain, built in the early 18th Century from the stones of the old castle. A precarious path winds down to a rocky beach from where some thirty fishermen once wrested a living, when they weren't smuggling liquor!