Ireland - Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle is technically not a castle. It is a Tower House, and there were many built between 1400 and 1600, this type of construction was borrowed/brought to Ireland from the Normans. When I say there are many...there are MANY. We saw the ruins of so so many tower houses, just dotted along the horizons everywhere we went. 

A tower house was the safest place to live in a medieval world. This tower house's walls are 18ft thick all the way around, so it is much smaller inside than it looks like from the outside. 

Can you IMAGINE someone spotting you ten bucks, and this is what you can do with it?!?! Mind blowing!!!

I want this wall paper! Can't find any replications online, booo!

Their attention to detail on the "keep people safe" front is crazy. If you remembered my comment on Rock of Cashel post - see how it's all white? Try to picture all current grey castle ruins in their original state that would have been white. Somehow it strikes differently, doesn't it?

Tower Houses were peoples homes. Wealthy people, yes, but still, just "normal people" who had the means to keep themselves/their small community safe. When fighting and war was all man on man attacks/combat, before the discovery/invention of gunpowder (think canon fire), these homes could not be beat. I can't see why any one would ever try. Their very construction took every defensive idea into account.

Deep deep sills because of those 18ft thick walls, which did get thinner as the tower rose in height. Windows would also get larger nearer the upper floors.

It looks suspended in air, because it's missing the floor for that level. It would have been a wood floor, so heat from the lower area could help keep it warm.

You can see here some of the "basketweave" mortar they used to get and hold the shape of their triangle vaulted ceilings. They would weave a large "basket/sheath", and use it as a form, pliable, but holds it's shape. If you zoom in on the pic, you can see the weave in the grey bit. The white is the smooth plaster (often ornate and decorative) that would have been the ceiling they saw.

That is an old old tree (beams) right there. WOW!

Tower houses are built one room on top of another. They are very inconvenient, because the stairs are more like ladders, but they are not uniform in any way. The distance between steps up and down, the width of the treads back to front - each one is varied and unique - on purpose. They are made to only be one way...so if an attacker is coming up, it's only 1 at a time, and they can't run or look up to see what is ahead - not looking at your feet and the incredible "differences" you are stepping on would mean that you fall, or at least can't go too fast, giving every advantage to the defender.

Way up at the top of the tower on the roof, a little fern is starting

Waiting on our turn to kiss the Blarney Stone. It was very windy up there!

Here is Brian kissing the Blarney Stone. I did it too, but Brian has the pic on his phone, I'll have to get it. At the end of this post I posted some pics of all the tales/folklore surrounding this "lucky stone". Unfortunately the stone that is deemed the lucky one is on the bottom side of the castle. I'll circle it on the pic below - but in order to kiss it, you have to have empty pockets, lay down, hold the bars and sort of suspend yourself upside down (an attendant helps you). It's very awkward indeed. I guess that's why it's lucky. I didn't put my actual lips on it because, ew, germs. But Brian did.

Standing on a curtain wall - You could walk in the center of it.

 

One thing we were utterly shocked by was all the palm trees in Ireland. PALM TREES!! Like it was Florida!!! They are native to there, and I guess it stays temperate enough to keep them thriving. It rarely ever snows apparently, and stays between 40 and 75. Completely ideal, actually...and not just for palm trees, haha!!