CASTLES!!

Today was the field trip for my Castles class. We ended up visiting three sites, plus a lovely little inn/pub place for lunch. So here's the tour!

All righty--after a dizzying drive in, we arrived at Pallis Castle, a tower house from the 15th century, built by the de Burke family. Here, as in each location, the professor, Kieran O'Conor, gave us a lecture about the history and why it's important for our class. I'll not bore you with the details, but basically tower houses are the absolute most common form of castle in Ireland--there are at least 3000 of them, and some people have estimated up to 7000. Crazy.

This is the view once I climbed to the battlements on the top. The wall around the castle is called a bawn, and it was used for additional defense with two towers, a gatehouse, and battlements.
Here's the little blurb about the castle, actually. Suppose that should have gone first...
This is a view from when I was on the battlement. The tower house is in the center and a later residence is on the left. It is mostly gone now, but you can see where it was once attached to the tower house. Behind the tower house is an 18th brewery...lovely.
Ze battlements. I slipped a couple times; I can't imagine having to run around and fight on them, like people must have way back when.
Miriam proves that you can see each other from the windows up on the battlements.
The gatehouse. Like the other buildings, its timber floors have all rotted out so now you can't go upstairs at all.
From my window in the battlements, there was the perfect tree to climb down if you were trying to sneak out of the castle. Pity it wasn't there 5 centuries ago!
Another stone structure nearby. I never found out what it was for, though.
In one of the towers of the bawn, the gunloops were all filled with these glass bottles and small, burnt out candles. Had some ritual or ceremony gone on?
I found some wood! I'm not sure if it's original, since mostly timber doesn't preserve, but it sure looked old.
A couple of blocked-up windows? doors? in the brewery.
Some cool old window on the side of the tower house.
To protect the residents, they even put arrowloops on the sides of the tower house, instead of just flush on the walls like normal.
Alice's attempt to see in the window of the brewery.
"Family photo."
And another crazy Alice photo. We're pretty sure it's a chimney chute, but then again it could have been the latrine spout. Kieran saw her go in and didn't mention any gross stuff inside, so hopefully it was the first option.
A close-up of the later addition. You can two fireplaces above ground level.
The front of the entry to the gatehouse.

Stop number two: Portumna Castle, a fortified house. We also went down the lane and saw an abandoned friary.
Some random, cool-looking building on the way in. Once again, no explanation given. Must have been good for something?
The first of two walls on the way in to the castle.
The crest on top of the second wall, the bawn.
And finally, the fortified house itself. Some scholars don't consider them castles, but others, like my professor, do, because they have arrowloops, machicolations (the things on the very top, where you could drop hot, burning stuff onto people below), and other defenses.
Look at this big fireplace on the ground floor. There must have been some good feasts here at one point. The first floor (what we call the second floor in America) was missing, although they seemed to be building a new one out of timber. The original would also have been of timber, which is why it's missing.
This is Fury, a dog found during excavation in 1997. It was buried at least 200 years ago. The rumor is that a child once fell on the property (from some height, I would assume) and landed on the dog, breaking its fall and saving its life. Unfortunately for Fury, the landing broke its back and it died shortly after. People assumed this was just a rumor until archaeologists proved that it really did have broken vertebrae. Poor dude.
Oh yeah--this is the floor building built upstairs. There seemed to be lots of construction going on, even on the outside.
All right: there was a display of important people in the second room. This is some guy whose name I've forgotten.
Hmm...this is out of order. It's some burned wood from a 19th century fire. Suppose that's interesting.
Anddd a wall.
Back to the people. We did our best to imitate them.


Some woman on the trip came up to me after this picture was taken and said that she looked like me. I guess so. I must have just been really good at the pose?!
On the way out I got a shot of the very fancy gardens. They were set up to show the wealth and civility of the owners--wild country gardens were considered rustic.
Around the back, there was a fancy exit with a plaque for Fury.
The remains of a back bawn? There was one, but I don't know if this was part of it.
The group wandered over to a friary nearby after seeing Portumna Castle. Its remains are from two periods, and it also seemed to be under some sort of construction or renovation.
Inside the buildings, you can still see the holes for the timber beams that would have supported another floor? roof?
Each of the windows was pretty unique, and I have to imagine that some of the destroyed ones once were too.
Another unique feature of the friary. There were other ones, but none so decorated as this one. A candleholder, perhaps? In reality, probably something more important.
There were graves all over the floors in the buildings.
Another one of the those beautiful windows.
Gravestones?
Miriam being a "lonely muffin."
Another above ground fireplace. Sure looks odd today without that other floor.
Oops. Here's the description.
Um, did I mention I was really hyper today? And tackled people? And sang all the time? And took random pictures of the sky?
Anyway, back to the friary. There were numerous columns on the inside in the cloister. I've got a million more pictures from different angles if you want to see them later...heh.
And again, family photo.
Brief interlude here: I'm been watching the Titanic for an hour and it's just about to finish sinking in the movie. Talk about a downer.

Site #3: Clonmacnoise. It was on my list of places I wanted to see anyway, so I was happy we got there today. We went mainly for the castle, which isn't mentioned in any tour books, but went to the monastic site right next to it too since we were there anyway.

This is a shot of the outer earthern defense on the right, which would have been covered in timber palisades and towers when the Anglo-Normans originally occupied the site; the remains of a gate across the ditch; and the very tip of the masonry part of the castle on the far left.
There it is! It was partially torn down by the Irish after they took it away from the Anglo-Normans so they couldn't come back and reuse it to conquer the area again.
The gate was supposed to keep everyone out, but since our professor had surveyed the site in the 90s, he knew his way around and took us in this sketch hole in the fence to do the lecture and to explore. All the other tourists were jealous...
Views from inside and around the castle. Oh, the people are drowning in the movie. I really should change the channel.


The River Shannon. On the other side of the river, it is a different county and province.
Look at my muscles--I'm just keeping this thing vertical.

The staircase from an earlier picture, which didn't seem to go anywhere, apparently continued up here. You can see the steps from that hole.
Now on to the monastic site. The two original high crosses, plus some other important stone artifacts, were moved into the visitors center so they wouldn't be eroded any more in the weather. Replicas are in place today where they once stood outside. This is one of the high crosses.
And this is the other.
There were a bunch of stones like this.

Some of the buildings out in the site.
One of the replica high crosses is visible here.
There were other crosses all over the place, and even a modern graveyard nearby with lots of similar ones.
This is the end of the pilgrims' path, which people walked to get to St. Cieran's chapel at the end of their pilgrammage (spelling?) to the site.
One of the round towers, the one with a ground floor entrance (a unique trait for a round tower).
Another building, but one that's been reconstructed for modern use.
Unlike this one...


The Whispering Arch's figures on top.
The rest of it. Apparently lots of amorous activities took place here...but it's a monastery?? Anyway, if you speak into one of the hollows, the person listening on the other side will hear you even if you whisper and no one else can hear. We tried this with my professor watching, and Alice very kindly whispered how big my butt was. Jerkface.
The other round tower.
A reconstructed arch.
A statue of a poor pilgrim. We're trying to comfort him.


And finally, there were daffodils on campus. Spring must be coming!

And that was basically my day! The stupid St. Patrick's Day video is once again not loading, so you may never see it...bwa ha ha. But here's a bunch of other ones--I think you can figure out where they're from. "Never let go, Jack!" Sorry--it's sad.

Good night!