Ireland #4 Bunratty

Today I'm going to tell you about Bunratty.
We've been to Ireland 3 times and each time we have gone here.

When you arrive the first thing you see is Durty Nelly's

Here is a link to 

The Story of Durty Nelly.
Durty Nelly is quite a legend in the area and so is the Pub.
We haven't eaten here, but we sure have taken our share of pictures
of this adorable pub.
It is a very popular place to eat as well as take pictures.
When we were there, it was just too crowded to get seating for 6 of us.
Here are a few of my pictures:

The Bunratty Folk Park is wonderful.

Filled with fabulous examples of life at Bunratty

there is a lot to learn and wonderful pictures to be taken.

I don't have pictures of the castle itself, don't know why I didn't take

them.  They don't allow pictures to be taken in most parts of the inside

of the castle.  Since the tapestries are hundreds of years old they don't allow flash photos

at all.  I do have some that I will post at another time from 

our last night in Ireland when we returned to the castle.

But for now, here is a little bit of it and the folk park.

I just thought this big old lock was cool.

These are outside the "front door" of the castle

Thatched roofs, were commonly used and are still on 

some buildings today.
More about that in another post.

I don't have a clue what these pieces of machinery are,

but they are interesting.

 

Ed and I were discussing this "tool"

we think it has to do with breaking up feed, but that is 

just our guess.  I've tried to look it up online, and just found that

we were right.

It's pretty nasty looking inside though.

There is a kind of tube with "spikes" all around it,

whatever goes in the top of this thing

is going to come out the bottom pretty well broken up.

Cakes were made from the pulp that was left after 

oil was removed from the seed.

These cakes were used as animal feed, but needed to be broken

up before given to the animals.

The cakes were fed through this machine to break them up.

I can imagine there were plenty of injuries from this machine 

back in the day.

Here is a picture looking out from the top of the castle.

I'm not a big fan of heights

(read that as scared to death)

but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet 

and go with the flow. 

So I was up at the top of the castle and it's a beautiful

view.  And it really isn't too bad, as it's not wide open up there

Here I am with Dave up at the top of 

Bunratty Castle.

Here is one of the stone buildings on the grounds.

As in most areas of Ireland the windows are beautiful.

There are very often flower boxes and/or pots and other vessels 

containing plants and flowers, creating beauty and interest.

This is a post office.  

You still see mailboxes like these around Ireland.

And there were the animals.

Isn't this pig just the cutest?

There were several of these deer or elk,

(you can see I'm not very knowledgeable about animals)

This guy was the leader of the pack and was proving it

with those antlers, sparing with another one and moving those

branches around with them.

And of course there were some roosters.

This is a view from the gardens behind

the  Bunratty House.

The gardens were built in 1804

and are fairly small for a walled garden,

1/2 acre.

The family that had resided in the castle moved to 

Bunratty House in 1804

which was much more comfortable than living in 

the castle itself.

The castle then fell into disrepair until it was restored in 1954.

Can you imagine having a garden with this

view?  It was absolutely gorgeous.

Here are some pictures from the garden.

&

these are my
Flowers of the Day

Compared to some of the gardens that we have seen

throughout the country, this one isn't particularly well kept,

but there were some lovely flowers and the view was spectacular.

Thanks for joining me again today

for my tour of Ireland.