The chief attraction to tourists is the ancient castle of the Talbot family, who have owned and occupied it continuously for seven hundred years, an unusual record for Ireland or for anywhere else. The original castle, built about 1180, in the reign of Henry II., is still standing, although modern restorations and additions have changed it much. The exterior has suffered more than the interior. The dining-hall, a very large apartment, is considered one of the finest rooms in Ireland. The wainscoting and the ceiling are of oak, richly carved, and mellowed by exposure for more than six centuries. The chimney-piece, an exquisite example of fourteenth century carving, represents the Conception. From 1653 to 1660 the castle was inhabited by Miles Corbet, the regicide, and the very day he took possession of the place, according to tradition, the figure of the Blessed Virgin was mysteriously detached from the rest of the carving and disappeared until the night after the unholy tenant fled from the place, when it was miraculously restored. There is a fine collection of paintings in the castle, including portraits by Van Dyck and other famous artists, three panels of scripture subjects by Albert Dürer, which formerly belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and were purchased by Charles II. for $2,000. The library is a treasure-house of old tomes and manuscripts, and upon the wall, in a heavy oaken frame, hangs the original patent by which the estate was granted to the Talbot family by King Edward IV. Within the roofless walls of an ancient abbey near by is the altar-tomb of Maud Plunkett, whose husband, Sir Richard Talbot, according to the epitaph, "fell in a fray immediately after the wedding breakfast, thus making her maid, wife, and widow in a single day." The village of Swords, three miles distant, has another ancient castle, where the bodies of Brian Boru and his son Morrough rested the first night after the battle of Clontarf while they were being carried to their final tomb at Armagh. All the little towns along the coast of the Irish Channel are associated with St. Patrick and St. Columba, who spent more or less time there, founding monasteries and building churches. One of the monasteries, called "the Golden Prebend" because it was so rich, was held by William of Wykeham in 1366 and was the seat of a cardinal for a century or two. A mile and a half from the main line, beyond Swords, is the village of Portraine, where Dean Swift's "Stella" lived for several years, and where a branch of the insane asylum he founded in Dublin has since been erected. It stands upon lands given by Sigtryg of the Silken Beard, the Danish king of Dublin, for the endowment of a Christian church. The house was occupied for many years by the nuns of St. Augustine, where "the womankind of the most part of the whole Englisher of this land are brought up in virtue, learning and in the English tongue and behaviour."