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Kilkenny Castle Alamy Stock Photo

Here's what topped the list of the most visited OPW sites in Ireland in 2022

The OPW manages and maintains the most important of Ireland’s historic buildings and heritage.

KILKENNY CASTLE WAS the most visited paid attraction operated by the Office of Public Works (OPW) last year.

A total of 1,418,171 visited the site in 2022. 

Dublin Castle was the second most popular paid visitor attraction operated by the OPW last year, with 371,858 visitors. 

St Stephen’s Green in Dublin was the most visited free site operated by the OPW, with 3,967,597 visitors last year. This was followed by the Phoenix Park visitor centre with 2,013,211 visitors last year. 

The number of visitors to OPW sites across the country last year topped 15 million, up by 2.3 million in 2021 (a year when some Covid-19 restrictions were still in place). 

The OPW manages and maintains the most important of Ireland’s historic buildings and heritage. 

Other individual regional sites have seen a striking increase in their visitor numbers.

Cahir Castle, winner of the European film location awards last year, saw 70,692 visitors last year, up from 34,959 in 2021. 

Carrowmore, which was announced as part of Ireland’s Tentative World Heritage List last year, saw 29,236 visitors last year, up from 13,253 in 2021. 

Significantly, the Rock of Cashel recorded a visitor increase of over 200% in the previous 12 months.

“These figures clearly indicate that there is an enormous interest in heritage tourism and that an increasing number of tourists and domestic visitors regard Ireland’s heritage sites as great places to visit,” Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW Patrick O’Donovan said. 

“It is wonderful to see that these sites are doing so well, both the paid attractions, which reflects very well on Ireland’s tourism performance, as well as the sites, parks and gardens which the public can access for free year round,” O’Donovan said.

“Every heritage site contributes to the local sense of place, the local economy and is a precious and unique place to discover for visitors of all ages and interests.”

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    Mute Paulco
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    Apr 25th 2023, 8:35 PM

    Surprised to see Kilkenny Castle that far ahead of Dublin Castle regarding visitor numbers.

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    Mute Sean Ryan
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:30 PM

    @Paulco: I’d say a lot of visitors wander around the grounds of Dublin Castle but don’t actually go inside.

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    Mute Joseph Mc Dermott
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:58 PM

    @Sean Ryan: same as kilkenny Castle. I see it every day

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    Mute John Kieran G.
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    Apr 25th 2023, 11:05 PM

    @Sean Ryan: Maybe. Difficult to quantify how many attended a paid site if not through ticket sales though.

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    Mute John Smith
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:37 PM

    How do they know how many tourists visited St Stephens Green?

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    Mute ggg
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:46 PM

    @John Smith: they use students on 3 or 4 days a month in summer to count how many enter, then roughly multiply that by the days in a month, same process in winter, autumn and spring. Not exactly scientific but they get a total number from that. I would then think they add on a good few invisible people for funding reasons. That’s pretty much how they do it.

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    Mute Larry Betts
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    Apr 25th 2023, 10:37 PM

    @John Smith: The Journal does a poll every now and then.

    Have you visited St.Stephen’s Green recently?

    a) Yes

    b) No

    c) I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m only here for the comments

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    Mute Larry Betts
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    Apr 25th 2023, 10:39 PM

    @Larry Betts: Sorry,spacing not working on my above comment for some reason. I separated options but Journal stuck everything together

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    Mute Type17
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    Apr 26th 2023, 6:46 AM

    @Larry Betts: The app (on iOS at least) is full of bugs – comments show an error when submitting, but are there if you leave the story and then return. Also, the ampersand (“and” symbol) doesn’t show up if typed here it is(n’t): &&&&&!

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    Mute UK Hurling Bloke
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    Apr 26th 2023, 11:40 AM

    @Larry Betts: it does that it’s crap

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    Mute UK Hurling Bloke
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    Apr 26th 2023, 11:42 AM

    @Type17: plus url links in comments don’t work on iOS app now and they did before. Bad to worse

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    Mute Michael Dowling
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    Apr 26th 2023, 6:18 AM

    Kilkenny Castle lovely to visit. The grounds and location good also. Very interesting inside.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    Apr 26th 2023, 7:33 AM

    Tintern Abbey in County Wexford had 160,000 visitors in 2022. It is hugely popular because of its many attractions , the Abbey, Restored Magnificent Walled Gardens , walking trails and River Walks.

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    Mute Dee
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    Apr 26th 2023, 9:36 AM

    I don’t think the OPW will be happy with 2 million people going to the visitor centre, anyway the numbers don’t add up, that’s 5,000 a day, the car park couldn’t cater for this,also the jogger’s park there because they can’t park on the main road or the few parking areas, also it’s closed when they have concerts and bloom , OPW make money.

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    Mute Gary Kearney
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:16 PM

    @Dee: Not joggers park, cyclists have ruined it. Wanna be middle class, middle aged people in lycrs pretending they are Stephen Roche and tearingmaround on the trails and the footpaths.

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