Edged by jagged limestone outcrops, it rises from the plains just outside the town of Cashel.

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"You go into their buildings and you think you're in Boston, " Mr. Cashel says.

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Jim Cashel and his wife, Anne Ching, a fourth-generation Chinese-American who never learned Mandarin growing up, moved from Sonoma, Calif.

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In the courtyard, the stone St Patrick's cross replicates the worn original in the Rock of Cashel's 15th-century Hall of the Vicars Choral, which was built to house the cathedral's male choristers.

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He headed to another significant Celtic site, the Rock of Cashel, in the town of Cashel, County Tipperary, about 94km north of Cork, which then rivalled Tara as a centre of power in Ireland.

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"I've been thinking a lot about fathers and sons in the course of this, and I'd like to accept this in the memory of my grandfather, Michael Balcon, my father, Cecil Day-Lewis, and my three fine boys, Gabriel, Ronan and Cashel, " he added.

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