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HOME AT FIRST'S

ADVENTURE

IRELAND
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Great Castles of Ireland

FOURTH IN A SERIES

Two Castles of Munster

MORE IRISH CASTLES:    CAHIR      CRAGGAUNOWEN      DUNGUAIRE     ROCK OF CASHEL     BRITISH CASTLES 

Bunratty Castle

          1,000 YEARS OF INVASIONS CONTINUE AT
                                  IRELAND'S BEST RESTORED
                                                MEDIEVAL CASTLE

Knappogue Castle

    HOW A MEDIEVAL FORTRESS
      WAS SAVED FROM RUIN BY
         A MODERN LOVE STORY

THIS UPDATED ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN MARCH, 2010.

       astles, like cats and catastrophes, have peculiar personalities all their own. Some castles have

C characters only castle-trekkies can love: curious monuments of rubble piled purposelessly in pastures.

Many such lie scattered randomly in fallow fields across Ireland. You do not slow when you see them in your race across Ireland’s expanses of green-and-mucky farmland on your hurried way to someplace more interesting. You may notice crows flying sorties among these ruins, darting from glassless windows Rapunzel O’Brien might once have used, then tracing double helixes around their precariously leaning towers before swooping skyward like black Spitfires in a playful Battle of Ireland. No, I do not slow to examine these sad shards.
          But some castles insist we pause. Stop us in our tracks. Not with the morbid curiosity of a freeway gapers-block. More like the knock-me-all-down hasty halt accorded a sexy Italian coupe — or a sexy Italian — that sweeps suddenly, seductively around the corner. Ireland’s got these, too. Not in spades, as in Wales, nor perched routinely atop gravity-defying craegs, as in Scotland.
          But, less is more in Ireland. Let us propose two Irish castles as qualifiers: worthy of your treasured touristic time, your gawk or at least a second glance, a photo-snap or four, and mention on a post-card home. Conveniently, for Home At First guests in Central Ireland, both castles are found in Ireland’s ex-Kingdom of Munster — which extends south and west from the middle of Ireland — with the two near each other in southern County Clare. Come with us today. Our visits shall be brief, designed to introduce and intrigue. Then come with us another day to CENTRAL IRELAND, for real.

BUNRATTY CASTLE
Photo © Home At First

       unratty’s violent history of invasion, siege,

Bruin, and reconstruction fittingly mirrors that

of Ireland itself. Bunratty Castle occupies a site along the River Ratty near its entrance into the Shannon Estuary, very near to Shannon International Airport west of Limerick in Central Ireland. The site has been occupied since at least 970AD, when Viking invaders (or colonizers, depending upon your point-of-view) established a trading post here. Anglo-Norman invaders/ colonizers built the first wooden and stone fortresses on the site in the 13th century, but within three generations they had been destroyed by the powerful O’Brien clan, rebuilt by the English, destroyed by the Irish clans again, rebuilt again by the English and finally captured by the Irish.

          The castle dates from the first half of the

           Bunratty Castle is recognized as a

Traditional Irish thatched cottage
at Bunratty Folk Park.
Photo © Home At First

national treasure of Ireland. Such lofty status does not keep Bunratty Castle from becoming centerpiece of a theme park during the day and the nighttime site of a commercial medieval banqueting hall for tourists. The former village of Bunratty that had grown up around the castle disintegrated as the castle decayed. Once Viscount Gort rescued the castle, other outsiders rushed to add restaurants and shops on adjacent land. Shannon Heritage, caretaker of the castle, imported representative historic buildings from isolated rural settings, and towns and villages throughout Ireland to create a new old village, a living museum called Bunratty Folk Park with artisans and shopkeepers in period costume. The

folk park and the castle draw tourists (some fresh

off international flight arrivals from nearby Shannon Airport) and school children by the hundreds each day. The folk park closes before nightfall, but the castle stays open to host two medieval banquet suppers (varying menu, but always accompanied with mead) each evening with entertainers appropriately dressed in case Henry VIII should arrive for meal and lodging. Surely the thought is to present the Bunratty complex as something of an Irish Williamsburg, with authentic buildings, historic recreations, meals and entertainment. The prices Bunratty charges for entrance, souvenirs, and meals are certainly in line with the upscale prices Williamsburg is known for. But Bunratty fails to be Ireland’s Williamsburg, drawing well-heeled couples and families to stroll reverently along its hallowed lanes. Rather, Bunratty takes on the role of an Irish Epcot or Busch Gardens, complete with running, shrieking children, and shirt-sleeved day-trippers eating sack lunches on every available bench.
 

KNAPPOGUE CASTLE
Photo © Home At First

welve and a half back road miles north of

Bunratty, another 15th century castle

_T

tower lies nearly hidden away from the main

tourist routes of Ireland. Knappogue Castle is very much a cousin of Bunratty Castle, built in 1467 by the MacNamara clan, the same Irish family who had built Bunratty forty years earlier. The MacNamaras used Knappogue as their home castle for more than 300 years, except for a five-year interlude when England’s Cromwellian “republic” took the castle away from the royalist supporters and gave it to one of their own Roundheads. With the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Knappogue Castle was returned to the MacNamaras who continued to reside there until selling the castle to the Scott family in 1800. The Scotts and their successor

owner, Lord Dunboyne, invested considerably in

restoring the castle. During the 20th century War of

Isolated Knappogue Castle
rarely sees crowds.
Photo © Home At First

Irish Independence (1919-21) Knappogue served as headquarters of the rebel forces of County Clare. After the war, the castle became the property of a local farmer, who wanted Knappogue’s land for grazing animals but did not care for the historic structure.
          Knappogue would likely have ended up like so many Irish fortified tower houses, a pile of rubble in a farmer’s field, were it not for the intercession of a Texas architect, Lavone Dickensheets and her oil-attorney husband Mark Edwin Andrews who purchased the derelict castle in 1966. Mrs. Andrews and her husband, with the cooperation of Ireland’s Shannon Development regional authority, embarked on an ambitious restoration of Knappogue. They added a large, sumptuous apartment for their own residential use, but otherwise carefully researched and followed medieval plans for rebuilding the castle. So successful was the effort that Mrs. Andrews was awarded membership in Ireland’s Royal Institute of Architects and the Europa Nostra Award for important restoration of a European monument. In 1996, four

years after the death of Mr. Andrews, Knappogue

was sold to Shannon Development and placed under the care of Shannon Heritage.
          Today, Knappogue Castle and its almost two acres of manicured Victorian gardens are open to the public. The castle also serves as another Shannon Heritage medieval banquet site during the warm weather months of April-October, and is available as an elegant, romantic setting for weddings and other special events. The Andrews’s former apartment is available as a luxury rental property. Noted guest residents at the 5-bedroom, 4-bath apartment have included Ronald Reagan and Charles de Gaulle.
          Related to the rescue of Knappogue Castle is the story of a second love affair of the Andrews family. While Mrs. Andrews pursued her passion for architecture by renovating Knappogue Castle, Mr. Andrews pursued his passion for single malt whiskey by buying up the last few kegs of a defunct central Irish distillery and bottling them under the Knappogue Castle brand. Today, Mark Andrews, son of Knappogue Castle’s benefactors, carries on his father’s whiskey passion through his expanded marketing of premium Knappogue Castle Irish Single Malt Whiskey through Castle Brands, Inc. However, the whiskey is neither produced nor bottled at the castle, as the brand is attached to reserve vintages of various Irish distilleries, none very close to Knappogue, County Clare.
 

— VISIT BUNRATTY & KNAPPOGUE CASTLES —
as part of your next visit to Ireland.
 
This article comes from Home At First's exclusive
"Ireland Activities Guide" that comes to you as part of your trip.
 
Learn all about Home At First's travel programs to: IRELAND
 
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