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Unfortunately, good sized English ruins are usually sanitised and carefully packaged for their visitors as a tourist attraction. There will usually be a car park, picnic site, guide book and fee payable on the gate. 

The plus side of this is that the ruin is at least maintained and preserved in all its glory. Its history and legends are carefully researched and available in the form of a small glossy pamphlet. Just follow the brown road signs and you will find an easily accessible ruin involving no clambering over barbed wire or livestock encounters.

These ruins are just as fine in their own right, just not as much fun. Their photographs will look just as good (as long as there isn't a coach-load of fluorescent clad tourists in shot). The fact is that the English care about their ruins. The Irish don't, particularly, especially as most of them are ones the English left over their in the first place.

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