Dominic West: Raising kids in an Irish castle has given them a broader experience

Dominic West thinks raising his children in a castle in Ireland has given them a "far broader existence" than they could find elsewhere.
The 48-year-old actor – who has kids Dora, 12, Senan, 10, and Francis, nine, with his wife Catherine Fitzgerald – lives in the spectacular surrounds of a castle in Glin, and he believes it’s the perfect place to bring up a family.
Dominic – who also has a 20-year-old daughter called Martha from a previous relationship – explained: "Glin enriches my life and my kids’ lives in terms of identity and continuum."
Dominic is confident his children will ultimately benefit from being surrounded by Irish culture during their youth.
And he’s insisted there’s nowhere else in the world he would rather raise his kids.
He told the October issues of House & Garden magazine: "My children are surrounded by Irish wit and humanity. They have a far broader existence than they would anywhere else in the world."
Dominic and Catherine tied the knot in 2010, and the ceremony turned out to be one of the events of the year in Glin, with the actor revealing that their entire village came out in support of them.
He said: "The whole village was involved, with Thomas Coolahan, the publican, postman and funeral director, running the bar with gusto."
Meanwhile, ‘The Affair’ actor recently compared sex scenes to "giving birth" and insisted they are more "agricultural" than sexy.
He said: "I have to wear a sock over my bits for a start. An actor-y sock thing. There was one that was like a jockstrap, but all of them are ridiculous. A lot of the time the girl is wearing stick-on patches on her nipples which are also ridiculous. You look like sexless dolls. It’s farcical.
"In your supposed moment of passion you have a guy with a boom going, ‘Could you just move slightly to your left, mate?’ Then you’ve got some other poor sod putting make-up on your bum.
"It’s not [sexy], it’s very agricultural. It’s like giving birth. Or like a vet delivering a new calf. Sort of. I mean, it can be sexy sometimes … at all the wrong moments."