Sunday, October 13, 2013

Bunratty Castle and Folk Park

Shabbos was cold. We closed all the doors that we could and confined ourselves to the living room where we spent the day reading and drinking lukewarm tea from the thermos that we had filled before lighting our candles. We briefly considered going on a walk but decided against it after looking at the overcast sky through the window.

Sunday we headed over to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. When we arrived at the park we were greeted by two huge Irish wolfhounds. The Crazy Lady asked if she could pet them and the trainer told her that they only ate one tourist a day and had already had their allotment so she was free to pet as much as she wanted.
We pet the pups and then went to find the castle.

The castle was built and destroyed a bunch of times before the current structure was built/extensively restored some time in the 19th century and is the most complete and authentically restored castle in Ireland.

The park also has many different types of cottages to show how people would have lived based on their jobs and status. There are houses from all over the country, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, Clare and County Mayo.


Most of the houses had little fires in the fireplaces and people in costume to tell you about how life would have been. You can watch them churn butter, bake bread and apple tart all of which the visitors are welcome to eat (although The Crazy Lady and I decided against it).

After the cottages there is a 19th century village complete with school, doctors house, pawn shop, grocery store, post office, (some other stuff that I can't remember) and pub.

The school house.
Sneaking behind the counter at the post office (there was no sign saying NOT to go behind the counter....)


Some of the stores have actual shops in them where you can buy pottery, sweater and all sorts of souvenirs. The pub at the end of the street called MacNamaras is a fully functioning bar where you can stop in to eat and have a pint.

When we had visited all the different parts of the park we looked around for something else to do (since it was still pretty early) but due to the fact that it was Sunday, lots of stuff was closed. We headed back to Doolin and started to pack stuff up since we were heading back to Dublin in the morning.
We got in to bed for a good nights sleep treasuring the silence of the little cottage. A couple of minutes after we got into bed The Crazy Lady came into my room and asked me if I had heard the funny noise from outside. I said that I hadn't so she went back into her room.
I was lying in bed trying to figure out what she was talking about when I heard it, we conferred and determined that it was probably a cow.
Happy to have solved the mystery, we went to sleep hoping that the cow would follow suit.


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