Last week the class was on the Long Trip, to the South of the country. Ambitiously, I had planned to adventure at every possible moment and squeeze every second of experience I could out of the opportunity. I even came up with a new slogan for week- Manifest Destiny. My friends and I had the solemn responsibility to map the new country we had landed in. I’m not comparing us to Lewis and Clark but we swam in the ocean and conquered a castle so there’s that.
The first stop was at Birr Castle. The most interesting thing about Birr Castle is that the Birr family still lives inside the main fort, which is kind of cool I suppose if medieval castles are your thing. While we were not allowed into the private residence for obvious reasons we did have the opportunity to explore the grounds. The pride and joy of these grounds is the giant telescope, built in the early 1840’s. It was the largest telescope in the world for 70 years, and still functions today! The rest of the grounds were exactly what you would hope for in a early afternoon stroll. Several calm ponds scattered around were home to a variety of wildlife. Mallards, with forest green masks that blended with the trees and gigantic white swans cleaning their feathers, floated above small fish dancing in the shallows. The sun, peeking through the low hanging boughs of the Irish Pines lit the faces of flowers, which seemed to be everywhere alongside the paths. The only disappointing part of Birr Castle was that the moat was clearly not a priority. Overgrown and dirty, and completely empty I just couldn’t understand why the family didn’t clean it up and turn it into a lazy river to use during the summer, but that’s just me.
After a few hours there it was time to move on to the Rock of Cashel, a tour that I would have paid all the money I have for Sean Connery narrate the tour for us. Standing atop a hill, the Rock of Cashel was ideally placed in terms of defense. Those would-be-conquering armies would have to march up a steep hill, facing battalions of archers perched on battlements, just to get to a tiny door; only big enough for one very short man to enter at time. Oh, and that door was right under something called a “Murder Hole”, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, its that to be a castle worth its salt you have to have at least one Murder Hole. Exactly what it sounds like, a Murder Hole is a tiny slit in the rocks above, through which the defending army would pour down tar, or boiling fat or water onto the heads of those attempting to enter.
Rock of Cashel had some really interesting architecture and small deliberate mistakes that I wouldn’t have caught if they had not been pointed out to me. The ceiling in the Great Hall was made to look like the inside of a barrel (there’s a specific term for this but it escapes me) and was constructed to withstand the damp Irish weather. Because of all the rain, and varied temperatures, the wood was curved to allow for flexing and were held together by dowels as opposed to nails. The metal nails would have rusted, and because of the expanding and contracting of the wood, the timber would split and need to be constantly replaced. Because it was curved and held together by dowels the wood was able to move in the wind and absorb and dry out from the rain and hold together. There was also a huge tapestry hanging on the wall on the other side, which had so many more uses than I previously thought a piece of art could have. Made from a heavy fabric it could be used as a blanket for warmth in the dead of night, it also absorbed some sound that bounced off the stone walls, and it was used as entertainment. The tapestry in the castle was a liar, and a very clever one at that. But give it a chance to explain, there are very good reasons for its deception. A deeply religious country, the artists of Ireland believed that only God could create something perfect, and for this reason the artist manipulated the loom as to show the truth of human kind; that they are imperfect and to pretend otherwise is hubris. And if you’re still angry about being lied to, maybe the other reason will help calm your rage. As there are only so many things these people could do before they started to hate the person they were talking to, these mistakes in tapestries provided the good people with a game-spot the liar. Some were obvious, such as only one edge of the picture had a border while the other did not, and the placement of a hound near the King. Canines were seen as nothing more than a dirty beast, used only to help guard the door and would never have been allowed to sit next to royalty. Now that amateur hour was over, the educated people (which there were precious few) would be relied upon to find the last lie of this particular masterpiece. The scene depicted the King of Cashel being presented gifts by a beautiful pale blonde woman, with sharp upward strokes on her eyeliner, and snakes on the bottom of her dress. While we were not told the whole story of this event, the bottom line was that this woman was indeed from Egypt, and therefore would have most certainly had darker hair and skin than the woman depicted for all to enjoy.
My favorite moment of our visit to Cashel came merely walking from one tower to the next. The remnants of a mighty cross stood, overlooking green fields, rolling hills, and running rivers. Everything the light touched seemed to be within your grasp from this vantage point. Furthermore, according to Irish legend, if you could hug the cross, slipping one arm betwixt the support and the base as the other wrapped around the side and make your fingers meet one another, that person would never suffer another toothache in their natural born life. As I hate toothaches I was all about this business. Despite my initial excitement, there was a creeping doubt in the back of my mind. On one hand, my arms are much longer for my height than they should be but on the other due to the screws in my shoulder I had lost a great deal of range of motion. Determined to protect myself against the nagging pain of teeth I pressed myself against the cross as tightly as I could and, one at a time, wrapped my arms around its base....and boom went the dynamite! My hands touched! And Bob’s my Dad I haven’t had a toothache since that day so the legend must be true! (A common Irish saying for “presto” or “voila” is Bob’s your uncle! But he isn’t my uncle he’s my Dad, and yes I’ve been using that joke quite extensively here.)
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