AAARRRGGHHH!!!
If you would like to see more Ireland pictures, please visit chateaurouxgirl.tumblr.com. I accidently posted my Ireland pictures to two different blogs.
No matter how humble an Irish home, it seems to have a stone wall around it, and usually a gate. This cottage seemed perfect…a happy blue door, a very affectionate cat, and a metal roof to make music when it rains.
Here is another ancient castle on private land, Lemenagh Castle. On the right is the original square stone fort built around 1100. The rest of the building was obviously added much later.
Rachel would have liked the medieval people because for once she’d be taller than everyone else! No, not really. I recently listened to a lecture on Medieval society where the professor said the average height for medieval men was 5 ft. 7 inches, and for women it was 5 ft. 2 inches. About two inches shorter than the average now. So Rachel would still be a hair shorter than average! Which doesn’t explain the small doorway…
If there is one Englishman who is universally and deeply hated by the Irish it is Oliver Cromwell. He was vicious of his treatment of them in the 1600’s. The Irish have long memories…Cromwell came up in conversation more than once. The round tower would have been for the monks to retreat to with the church’s valuables in times of attack. The previous photo shows how this one got destroyed. Oliver Cromwell used cannonballs on it. Hopefully the monks weren’t burned alive in the tower like many were.
Old church ruins like this one at Kilnaboy dot the Irish landscape. We found it interesting that many family graves have been placed inside the ruins in every church we visited. Sometimes they are so crowded together that it is hard to walk through them respectfully.
