Today we headed over to Cashel, to see the Rock of Cashel. It is situated high on a hill overlooking vast farmland and grazing pastures. It was built between the 12th and 15th centuries.
Some beautiful architecture, with all the arches and windows and arrow slits.
Very little like the tiny little primitive churches we have seen elsewhere!
The views from the hill were lovely, with the ever present dry walls and green pastures! Outside are of course, many burial plots, and even some fairly new ones.
Mimi has really been into daffodils and when we spotted this little stretch of them just on the other side of a wall, we had to snap a picture!
Our very last tourist stop was Kilkenny Castle. Originally built as a true castle in the early 13th century, it was privately purchased in 1391, and remained in that family's possession until the mid 1900s. Over all those years, many changes have been made to the interior.
It presents now as an enormous estate mansion, and it is replete with furniture and staging to make it look as it would have at its height.
It was very beautiful, but very overdone for my tastes! Of particular interest architecturally, the house included a cantilevered staircase, completely unsupported from beneath, which honestly freaked me out a bit!
And perhaps the most important thing...this house had one of the first working flush toilets! Installed in 1904, it must have been a boon to those living here!!
There was an enormous hall of art...paintings, sculptures, busts, tapestries, and a marvelous wood floor. I always wondered if the people who lived in places with giant art halls like this would spend much time in there. Especially when most of the paintings are of people. Perhaps it was more a status issue than an enjoyment issue.
Only down in the medieval basement level did it give any ideas as to what it might have looked like when it was first built. Massive wooden beams, stone walls, and chilly damp. I bet the children who lived here over the years loved to go down and play spooky games in the darker danker medieval sections of the house that their parents likely forbid them to go in to!!
And of course no respectable castle/manor mansion would be complete without lovely gardens for the ladies to wander through!
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