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The small village of MOONE , three miles south from Ballitore on the N9, once formed a link in the chain of monasteries founded by St Columba, and the garden of Moone Abbey contains the ruins of a fourteenth-century Franciscan friary and a ninth-century cross . The cross is particularly interesting; rich in naive and strangely orderly carving. The east side depicts Daniel in the lion's den, the sacrifice of Isaac, Adam and Eve, and the Crucifixion; on the west are the twelve apostles, the Crucifixion and St John; and on the north, other carvings - including a number of figures and animals. The Moone High Cross Inn (tel 0507/24112; GBP40-55/50.79-69.84) is a friendly, rambling old pub here, serving a good range of bar food, plus a more ambitious menu in the restaurant. Five miles further south at CASTLEDERMOT there's more to see: two tenth-century granite high crosses, plus a bizarre twelfth-century Romanesque doorway standing by itself in front of an ugly modern church and a truncated round tower. Castledermot also has a thirteenth-century Augustinian abbey, an example of how the European monastic orders muscled in on the indigenous Irish church. Its substantial remains give a completely different feel to what might otherwise be merely a roadside stop. Kilkea Castle , the Fitzgeralds' second Kildare stronghold (after Maynooth), stands a couple of miles up the Athy road (R418) from Castledermot. It's impressive looking: originally built in 1180, it was modified in the seventeenth century, and most of it is a mid-nineteenth-century restoration. Massively refurbished again in the 1980s, it's now a luxury hotel (tel 0503/45156, fax 0503/45187, kilkea@iol.ie ; over GBP130/165.07) boasting a leisure centre and sauna. There's a more reasonably priced B&B option at Kilkea Lodge Farm (tel 0503/45112; GBP55-70/69.84-88.88), a stone-built farmhouse with a riding centre attached, and it does dinner for around GBP20/25.70.
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