Ireland - Castle Ross

Ross Castle was a guided tour, which happened to be free on Wednesday's so we got lucky there! (Admission was not expensive, and I consider it worth it). The downside here - you were not allowed to take pictures on the tour. Boo. But we learned a lot about tower houses, and it was amazing to see it, as it has been fully restored and is not in ruins. They used building material and methods as would have been in the 1400s, and the furnishing are authentic from the period as well.

Tower houses, as I have talked about in the other "castle posts" I've made were just very safe places to live in the 1400 and 1500s - once the invention of gunpowder came around and canon fire became a thing - they were significantly less safe. Not safe enough to make it worth the inconvenience of living in them - so the wealthy, instead of using their wealth to be safe, used their funds for prettier homes - the mansion castles that came in the 1600s & 1700s. If you're in danger anyway, you might as well be surrounded by beauty and all the ease and comforts the time would afford.

 The castles became ruins, when the government began charging a roof tax for all structures with a roof on your land. Because no one wanted to live in the Tower House anymore, and they then certainly didn't want to pay a tax for it, they took the rooves off. So they paid no tax. But with the Tower now exposed to the elements, they fell into ruins quickly. This is true of most ruins - Castle Ross' situation was a little different as it became a military installation at some point. But in the end, same result. They removed the roof on these intentionally to allow them to ruin.

When they rebuilt the roof on this one (and Bunratty, an upcoming post), they copied the likeness of the ONLY Tower House in Ireland to still have it's original roof. It is near Dublin, and shockingly was occupied as a home all the way into the 1800s, and by then, they were "protected" by the government, and you weren't just allowed to take the roof off. They are oak, and vaulted, and GORGEOUS.

We can see here, this floppy wristed fellow in an ancestor of none other than our very own Shaughnessy Vale, first of her name. She, also, has an aversion to everything that is called "pants" and "shoes" 😂

Sir Thomas Lee, Captain General of the Kern Marcus Gheerhaerts, 1594.
Lee, an English officer, is shown bare legged like his men and carrying an Irish lance. English officials were worried that servants of the Crown would 'lapse into barbarism' by adopting Gaelic ways.

Drawing from 1600s of Kern or Cearnaigh. These were bands of lightly armed mercenary foot soldiers. They went barefooted and carried Irish swords and the Irish scian or dagger.

We learned a few neat tidbits we hadn't known or thought of - These tower houses have very narrow stairwells, for defensive purposes - and having climbed them, I can attest to the fact that you couldn't carry anything bigger than a tray up or down them really. So all the furniture was built in place, and never moved (as it wouldn't be possible). 

We learned that the average height for an Irishman in the 1400s/1500s was actually quite tall at 5'10" - the beds in that period are all short. Not because the people were short, but because they slept sitting up. Because of the dark, smokey and unsanitary conditions of life in that era, (including those in tower homes), respiratory issues were a big thing, and apparently sleeping upright was helpful. Also you could fit more people in a room. Even though tower house owners were wealthy, there was still only 1 bedroom in the tower, which everyone had to sleep in (and then one smaller room off of that with no fireplace for the servants to all sleep in).

The floors were often stone - though one or two of the floors would have a wood floor to help with the weight of the thing overall - but they would use threshing straw on the floor to soften it for the feet and warm it up - there was a raised bump of stone at the entrance of each room - meant to keep the threshing inside the room where it belonged, so it didn't get dragged out and lost down the stairs. Hence the term we still use today, a threshold.

They were very very afraid of fire - it was a big concern, as invasion was not a likely problem - but catching your floor on fire was something they were very very cautious about.

This door was built vertically on this side and horizontally on the other side, so it was very difficult to break down. The studs are nubs now for safety, but they would have been sharp and pointy.

It was so pretty inside! The tapestries and the furnishings are amazing. The garderobe (bathroom/cloakroom) was explained as multipurpose room - a walk in closet and toilet in one. The ammonia smells coming back up the shafts of the chutes that were the toilet was thought to kill (or did kill?) bugs. So they kept spare clothing in there, so that it wouldn't have bugs. Which leads me to believe that there was not one corner of  the "civilized" world at the time that didn't just reek of human waste. I guess we could attribute the phrase "gag a maggot" to this kind of practice 😂

Dirty, stinky, and difficult to live in, yes yes yes. But also. WOW. And I want one.

Ireland - Portmagee boat ride/Puffin Rock (Valencia Island notes)

After Kerry Cliffs - we were "supposed" to go to Valencia Island. It is one of the most westerly parts of Ireland, and, in 1866, (after about 9 years of trying/failing) they succeeded in the first transatlantic communications. They dropped wire across the Atlantic, all the way to Newfoundland, and were able to send telegraphs back and forth. This is mind blowing technological advancement for the 1860s, isn't it? They used that wire to get info from the Europe to the America's until after the 2nd world war - All the way until 1966! I think it technically still works but is not used anymore. So, on Valencia Island there is a museum about this, of course. But we decided to skip that, in favour of trying to see a puffin or two on Puffin Island.

A boat ride was in order! We caught a boat at Portmagee - Named after a boat Captain Magee who was a smuggler way back when and brought all kinds of foreign goodies to Ireland.

There is "Puffin Rock", which is actually called Puffin Island, but the Netflix show has made it so popular that even our boat tour guide was saying Puffin Rock.

Looking at the Kerry Cliffs from the water

The Wild Atlantic was not our friend today. Not only was it not safe to go to Skellig Michael, but it wasn't safe to go to Puffin Rock either, though it is much closer. We encountered wild waters just trying to leave the edge of the bay. Brian gets motion sick on boats, and the sea swells started to take their effect on him.


Out boat captain was probably 15, maaaaybe 18, but definitely looked 12 in every single way. His sister looked 18, but might have been 21? He drove the boat, she told us all the facts, they were so great! 

We couldn't get out to Puffin Rock, and Puffin's seldom come into the bay - but one did and we saw it!! It was the cutest thing ever. He was barely flying above the surface of the waters swells and the terror look in his eyes as he flew frantically was saying "I might not make it out of here", but he was trying for all he was worth. It was a true highlight of the trip. What adorable creatures!

There is a pic in the Kerry Cliffs post where I point out this "scoop" shape. This is it from the water, and a different angle, but it looked like God took a huge ice cream scoop and scooped out the edge.

Boat captain took this one, I don't know what happened to the angle there, but that's hilarious 😁

Driving to our next stop - the fences they build, right up to the tops of mountains are interesting/mystifying - like why?! That's a lot of work to keep people off your land imo. When there is SO MUCH LAND to go around. Strange to me.

Having a lanyard on my phone is the only way I could hang my arm off a cliff face, or over the ocean on a boat and not lose it. Highly recommend.

Dinner in the town of Killarney - NY style pizza is not a "thing" there - we never saw it advertised, and we never had any. Neapolitan style was the thing. As an aside, we saw plenty of Papa John's there. Better ingredients, better pizza - same slogan, though always paired up with a Supermac burger place sharing it's location.

 One that posted out of order - 

The waters look calm, and even in the videos you can't see the up and down of the swells we were experiencing. It was ROUGH!

Ireland - Kerry Cliffs & Skellig Islands

As far as spectacular views go, the cliffs in Kerry deliver. Between Kerry Cliffs and Mizen Head, I think they were the best, most beautiful views we saw, in my opinion. It IS hard to narrow that down, because it was all gorgeous, but those two places were especially breathtaking to me.

On our way to the Kerry Cliffs, a pull off viewpoint of beauty

If you want to just pivot your head like an owl and never see anything unsightly all the way around, you NEED to go to Ireland.

Side note, none of their caps are removable. This is kind of neat and good, and kind of "we're not used to it" so it was annoying at times - Brian once lined up his mouth to the cap mindlessly thinking it was the opening, and subsequently dumped water all down the front of him:-)

More on Skellig Michael in another post, but at the Cliffs, there is an example of what is out there.

A modern made example of a Beehive Hut. We saw a few of these as ruins in the wild, and a few of these on one of the Aran Islands we visited.

The Kerry Cliffs stand at over 1000ft tall. It is a protected edge, meaning, there is a fence, so you can go all the way up to the edge. Unlike the more popular Cliff of Moher in Galway (in another post), which is an unprotected edge, so you cannot go as close to the edge. 

Kerry Cliffs are the highest in Ireland (comparing to Moher, which most are familiar with, these are about 300ft higher than Moher).

In this picture you can see Skellig Michael and "Puffin Rock" if you know the Netflix show for kids (which we adore). It is really called Puffin Island in real life. Puffin Island is the island in the foreground of the background on the left if that makes any sense at all, haha!! The skellig islands are the two bumps in the middle of the background. They are about 7 nautical miles away.

Skellig Islands - I believe the taller one is Skellig Michael and the shorter one is Little Skellig

View from turning around from the cliffs/ocean

There are two lookout points for the cliffs, about a km apart or so, and a definite uphill climb/hike.

When you are 1000ft above sea level, it is WINDY and CHILLY

I'll point out this spot from the boating pics/videos.