More Castles in Ireland

We have spent the last two days driving around Ireland and viewing castles.  There was quite a castle system around here in the 15th century and on.  We went to Knappogue Castle which is associated with Quinn Abbey which I already talked about.  It is really a tower house and was built in 1467.  There were a total of 84 Tower Houses built in east Clare (we are in Clare County) and 42 of them belonged to the MacNamaras.  It was said that from each MacNamara tower you could see at least one other.  The Tower House is actually a squarish structure open in the center.  Within the walls are the rooms that were used for living and all other functions.  "Most Celtic Chieftains preferred an outdoor life and spent large amounts of time outside the tower.  The tower provided protection in time of war and was used for lavish entertaining during peace times.  They also emphasised the standing of the land owner and were a sign of the owner's position in society."

We actually went to Knappogue Castle and Bunratty Castle yesterday.  Both are tower castles but Bunratty is much more commercialized.  They have actually built a living museum around Bunratty Castle.  They have salvaged various old buildings of the time period and moved them to one location to represent what life was like at the time.  There is a farmhouse, a village, a smithy, and so on.  This is where lots of tour buses stop.  We didn't fully realize that until we got there and it is a good place to take kids and teach them but I, personally, was a little turned off.  We have been to other living museums in Canada and Alaska that show frontier living and they were good.  This one wasn't bad, I just wasn't prepared for this to be one.  We should have been but somehow we missed that info.  We saw kids with balloon animals, face painting, and parents carrying little castle boxes that looked like the McDonald's kids meal boxes.

Many of the village buildings housed businesses selling crafts and the castle does two medieval dinner shows each night.  The inside of the castle was also painted white to brighten it and better display the furnishings, I guess, but between that and the tons of people, it was hard to take pictures and move around.  We had to pass many people in the tiny spiral staircases and I found the experience scary.  I find those stairways to be white-knuckle anyway and this just made it worse.

Today we went to The Rock of Cashel around Tipperary. It and the Hore Abbey can be seen from each other and are related in time period and function.  The Rock of Cashel is a cathedral built during the 12th thru 15th centuries that is under conservation for the most part.  That means that they are trying to prevent further deterioration vs restoration where they are trying to bring it back to it's original condition.  It is associated with St. Patrick.  It is on a hill and the wind was fierce.  The day started out sunny but there was a short rain burst as we were leaving.  

Hore Abbey from Rock of Cashel

The Abbey is obviously used as a playground by the local kids. There were two boys climbing around it when we were there. They left on bicycles so they had to be local.  I guess everyone around there is used to it but it scared me to see them high on the walls.

We also went to the walled city of Fethard.  What you could see is part of the old walls that used to surround the city.  Just after that we went to the Folk Park in Fethard, down the road from the walls.  We thought it was something very different than what it turned out to be. We paid 3 euros to basically enter a flea market, and not a very good one at that.  Live and learn.

Doug and I like old architecture so seeing all these really old structures leaves us with a sense of awe and reverence.  Not everyone agrees with us but we are enjoying these brushes with history.  Today we arrived in Dublin.