ADARE — PICTURE PERFECT IRISH VILLAGE? (PAGE 2)

        The original medieval village of Adare would have been built in the shadow of the castle for protection. When the castle was badly damaged by troops of the English Crown suppressing a 16th century rebellion, and then ruined by Oliver Cromwell’s English Parliamentary forces in the 17th century, Adare town disappeared too. New Adare arose on the opposite bank of the river from old Adare during the first half of the 19th century when the Second Earl of Dunraven built the new town for the workers and tenants on his estate.

...AND A SANITIZED VERSION OF IRISH HISTORY?

        The famous Adare thatches, therefore, were an expression of nostalgia even then for a romantic feudal vision that was a sanitized version of Irish history. Ironically, the plentiful labor involved in the construction of new Adare and the Earl’s own majestic manor may have helped local residents avoid some of the worst suffering of the Great Famine of the 1840s.

        Whatever the economic realities of the 19th century earldom, Adare’s 21st century realities suggest a prosperity disproportionate with its pastoral setting in an otherwise unremarkable corner of Central Ireland. The theme park nostalgia of thatched Adare presents a shocking contrast with the Limerick of Frank McCourt’s "Angela’s Ashes" just fifteen minutes to the north. Yet both images are exports that cash in on American images of Ireland as a once-pleasant peasant landscape perpetually plagued with a system that lacked a middle class.

ADARE—SHOCKING CONTRAST WITH 
THE LIMERICK OF 'ANGELA'S ASHES'?

        Today’s Ireland—full of Eurocrats, High Techies, entrepreneurs, and well-educated managers and businessmen—doesn’t much resemble what Irish-Americans remember as the green motherland they fled. Ireland was never greener than it is today and much of that green is gold. Adare’s pricey thatched restaurants and shops and its Adare Manor Hotel and Golf Resort tell us more about Ireland the successful member of the European Union and Ireland the world travel destination than it does about Ireland the once chronically impoverished land of demi-royalty and their oppressed subjects.

        Go to Adare—it’s just an hour’s drive south of Home at First’s cottages in Central Ireland. Park in the big lot behind the Adare Heritage Centre by the Trinitarian Abbey church. Walk up and down Main Street, and photograph the idealized thatches and the brightly colored shops. Stroll through the town park—there might even be a wedding party posing for photos. Have a look at the Second Earl’s great manor that welcomes 21st century royalty. Have lunch in one of the many restaurants and pubs that range from simple to elegant. Then leave town by a back road and head east cross-country through the maze of lanes leading after most of an hour to the market town of Tipperary. Park your car and take a 30-minute walk through Tipperary and discover more about traditional rural Ireland on this impromptu visit than Adare will dare let you see.

ADARE PARK—BEWARE
      OF WEDDINGS

        Home at First’s Central Ireland cottages are a short day trip away from Adare
in and near pretty Irish villages of their own. Visit Adare and most of the
Republic of Ireland from your home base in
CENTRAL IRELAND