June 8th, Newcastle West to Althone

We had a nice breakfast which included poached duck eggs and griddle bread, a first for all of us. I would like to try the griddle bread at home and maybe make some adaptions. None of us thought the duck egg was very different than a hen's egg. It was our final meal together. It was time to pack up and get the guys to Shannon airport.

 

Mike and I were also chomping at the bit because we had no wifi!

 

We got to Shannon way early but Mike would rather be early than pushing it. I then headed off to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. The books all give it 3 stars/top attraction status but it had sounded very touristy. Well, it is totally designed for tourists but not in a touristy way. It was incredible! I spent 3 ½ hours there

 

 

The castle is an actual castle that was restored by Lord and Lady Gort. Although none of the furnishing are original to the particular castle because it was a ruin when they started, everything is original to the 15th C. The plaque at the  door says that the earliest wood fort was built in 1251 and followed by 3 stone castles, this one being the O'Brien castle that was built in 1425 and altered many times since. When they started the restoration in 1956, they removed every thing added after 1619 which was when the decorative ceiling in the chapel was added and the 15th century battlements restored.  It is really unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Pennsylvania history nuts, the sign also says that Admiral Pens was besieged here in 1646 and it is generally believed that his son, William, then an infant, was at the castle.

 The first picture is from the front, the second from the back.

Did you know, they said the people were not that much shorter than us, about 2” but they made the doorways so narrow and low because they wanted to insure that only one person could go through at a time and that they would go through head first so if they were the enemy, they could be beheaded.

 

They gave us an orientation in the great room which is pictured here. And gave us interesting facts. In contrast to what you read in historical novels, women did not join the meals and entertaining in the great room but took it in the salon above where they could see down but not deal with the male crudeness of the time.

 

 They also pointed out the spy holes and murder holes, where people could be dropped to the dungeons.

There are stairways off each corner of the great rooms where you could clime and see rooms that were set as they would have been then. The bedrooms, salons and chapels. You could also clime to the top of the castle and see the view of the surrounding area.

Surrounding the castle there are a bunch of cottages that would be true to the time in question, and though I am sure it is cleaner than things were at the time, you smelled the peat from the fire even in cottages that it was not lit and saw the blackness it created on the ceiling.
 

I wish I could show the insides but they were too dark because of a lack of windows. They did have chickens everywhere though. The only thing I found a bit off with any of the cottages or later in the village, was that they often had a room set for dining in any of the multi room  dwelling but I suspect given the number of children most families had, unless you were very well off, your kitchen, dining, living was 1 room and the rest were used for sleeping.

There was a house where a well off family would have lived with a housewife there making real scones and giving out buttered samples (she baked them in another room that had a gas stove) but made and rolled them for you to see. She gave me a bunch of the recipes which I am looking forward to trying and sharing.

The village was from a later time but still  everything in it pretty much in keeping with the time. Although there were some things being sold, they were in keeping with a shop that would/could have been there and still had the real tools like the potter’s wheel and the weaver’s loom.

 

 

 

 

 

 Beyond it were actual houses from the time including Bunratty House where the owners of the castle had built and moved to when they found the castle to cold and not modern enough, and yes, there were deer in the yard. This is actually the back of the house, the front has no room to take pictures. 

 

Another house of 2 brothers who grew up to create the ice cream that all of Ireland ate and the a collection of actual farming tools.

 

 

They had houses that would be common to different counties and different economic levels, including the kind of farm house that the farmers shared with some of their animals. Nana Heasley’s family kept chickens in the room I saw as the living room according to what Jimmy saw when he was there during the Korean war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside that house was the pigsty with 2 real pigs. In fact, everywhere there were animals where there should have been. Scott, I got you lots of picture of various fowl. I think the roosters were having a crowing competition! Also saw goats, deer, a donkey and pony as they would have been kept.

 

  The corner of the house you see on the right of the pictures of the pigs is the actual house above, they kept their animals that close.

 

 

 

 

 

The church had been moved stone by stone from Tipperary.

 

I have 2 favorite pictures from the village. One is this man with the 2 Irish wolfhounds walking around the village offering to take pictures of people with their own cameras of them with the 2 dogs. The kids loved it but it was obvious so did some of the adults. Unfortunately, with my great camera skills, I cut off the man's head(but got the dogs!).

The other was the potter. We had a great discussion on crafts in Ireland. His brother and sister are also potters and between them, they make everything in the store that also has a potting wheel and full set up. He said that there were lots of crafters in Ireland who had learned from family past down skill till about 20 years ago when the boom came. Then people abandon them for the high paying jobs in construction. Now there were far fewer crafts people.

 

Afterwards I went to a little pub having tea, sticky pudding (extra yummy!) and wifi! I was able to catch up on the email and blog that I hadn't been able to do in the morning at the B&B. Then went across to the Blarney Mills to look at sweaters and crystal. There was a really incredible home goods store on the 2nd floor of one of the buildings. It is fortunate they didn't have anything in cobalt blue and that I would have had to pack it, because they had really neat things, at really good prices.







Now it was time to head for the hotel. I am using points to stay at the Sheraton Athlone which is right in the middle of the country. The drive was quite nice and uneventful. Much of it was on what they call dual carriage ways and what we think of as a 4 lane divided highway. But I did have a bit on a secondary road. The country is beautiful, very green and the skies (yes, I am on that kick again) were really lovely. Lovely is a word you hear a lot in Ireland.