Limerack ~ Where are the Jays

Our next stop was a small town just outside of Limerick called Bunratty as in the castle Bunratty. On our way to Bunratty we stopped in Ennis at the ruins of a friary and then in Limerick to see King John's Castle.

Ennis is a small town on the way, and we noticed it had an old Franciscan friary, so we made a pit stop. The friary is mostly in ruins, but part of it has been renovated and is under roof. The section under roof has some very old sculptures including one of St Francis of Assisi. At one time, this was a very prosperous friary and school. Seems it was also the last friary standing after the Reformation forced the closure of Catholic organizations. You can tell by the portions still standing without a roof were very pretty with elaborate carvings. After the friary, we decide to wander around the town a little bit before we head on. Our impression is that it is a pretty prosperous area as there are several upscale shops in the area including a jewelry store that catches my eye. After that we get back on our way to Limerick to see King John's Castle.

street view of the friary

roofless portion

King John's Castle is on an island in the middle of the Shannon River and has been around since 1212. This was a defensive or fortress style castle. For something built for war, it was in surprisingly good condition. Amazingly, people still lived within the castle walls till the late 20th century. King John of England had the castle built after a visit to Limerick, but he never stepped foot in it since he was fighting elsewhere and then died 6 years after he had it built. The castle would be part of the wars between the native Irish Catholics and the English Protestants during the years of the Reformation. For us, the castle offered several floors of modern exhibits on the castle and all the wars that occurred over the years in it. Then we went exploring the grounds a little bit and walked up the stairs to the top of the tower. As part of the modernization of the exhibits they have set up areas with an interactive experience such as with the coin maker. There was also an area where they had excavated and found some of the original walls of older castles that had been on this site. We wandered around the area (Limerick's medieval section) before going back to the car and heading to our next "home."

view from King John's Castle Tower

Our new "home" is a small family run bed and breakfast. Expecting good food in the morning as the write up says the dad is a chef. This evening, we have booked a medieval dinner at the nearby Bunratty Castle. We walk down the road to the castle, get checked in and join the crowd at the base of a stairway with a draw bridge. Soon a lady in period dress comes out and welcomes us and then we are serenaded by a bagpiper. After that we are led upstairs to the great hall for a glass of mead and to be serenaded by an Irish harpist and a violinist. We soon meet our host for the evening - the butler of the castle also in period dress. From there we move down a floor (oh the stairs are narrow and winding) to a hall where we will have our meal. It has a small balcony where our host first greets us before moving down to a small stage where he joins our servers/entertainers. Our entertainers are a madrigal group all of whom sing quite well. In between songs they serve us dishes family style. We start with a parsnip soup which is quite good. I should add we are only given a dagger (steak knife) to eat with so you drink the soup and then use your hands on future courses. From there we get barbecued ribs followed by a chicken dish with potatoes and green beans. We finish with a sweet dessert that is served thankfully with a spoon. Of course, there were some hijinks during the evening too like one guy got thrown in the dungeon for a while. It was a fun evening and one I would recommend.

Bunratty Castle

Next morning we had planned on riding bikes on the Limerick Bikeway even had made bike arrangements. Then we discovered that it was a good hour drive to the bikeway because it was still under construction. After advice from our hostess, we went back to Bunratty Castle and to its Folk Park. The Folk Park is quite large and has Irish homes and businesses from several different time periods. Additionally, there are people in costume wondering around that will interact with you as if it is their time period. We saw a 2-room schoolhouse - one for boys and one for girls. It was supported by a local landowner, and it was the first school that accepted both sexes. The education was a little different by sex with the girls learning to sew and knit in addition to reading and writing so that they could find a career outside of the farmhouse.

school house - notice left side says girls and the right is boys

There was an 1850s Georgian House that was lived in until the mid 1900s which had a walled garden attached to it. An old church and a variety of old homes from different locales within Ireland. Such as a poor farmer whose house also housed his animals to a fisherman's small farm cottage that had roping on top of the thatched roof to keep the strong coastal winds from blowing the thatching away.

inside Georgian house

Poor farmers house, livestock stared room with fireplace

Successful fisherman’s home at netting to hold thatched roof from being blown away

Close to the schoolhouse there was a row of buildings housing businesses from the 1800s. Then it was on to the castle.

Blacksmith explained benefits of double bellows

We had seen 2 of the main rooms but areas like bedrooms had been closed off the night before. I was impressed by how nice a couple of the rooms were and not just the earl/king's room. The captain had an ornately carved headboard and tapestry on his bed and a separate "bathroom". The earl's bedroom was up higher and also nicely decorated. Oh, while we were at the dinner they had pointed out one large chest like piece of furniture and said that someone would have started building and carving it at the birth of a daughter for her dowry.

Earl’s bedroom

Captain’s bedroom, Note the ceiling sculpture and bed carving

hall where the harpist and violinist were the night before

After the castle we took more advice from our hostess and headed out to a local park for a hike. The memorable part of the hike was this field of wild foxglove plants - never seen so many in one place.

We had the host and another couple recommend a nearby restaurant for dinner that night. We also asked our host if it was walkable. He said yes then he also told us about a shortcut that the locals take. Well that sealed that we were walking and we were going the local way. Seems you walk down the street to the Bunratty Winery (mead and poitin no wine), walk up their driveway till at the end you see a narrow path and follow it around. The path opened up behind the 1850 Georgian House from the Folk Park to a road, but just past the house the path/road was very over grown- see the picture below. And then to Jeff's utmost delight our host had told us you have to walk over the wall at one spot because the gate is always closed. Oh the intrigue!