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ADVENTURE OF THE MONTH—FEBRUARY/MARCH, 2005

Does Ireland Really Need an Irish Theme Park?
Do we travel to put ourselves in Ireland, or to find Ireland in ourselves?

BUNRATTY FOLK PARK —     
'THE REAL IRELAND FOR A DAY'  

                 A Home at First photo essay
with quotes from Pete McCarthy's "McCarthy's Bar"

        Pete McCarthy is more traveler than travel writer. He grew up between Liverpool and Manchester, and still makes his home in England. His dad was English, his mom Irish. And, even after a lifetime in England, McCarthy isn’t sure if he really isn’t mostly Irish. His #1 best-selling book, "McCarthy’s Bar" (originally published in 2000 by Hodder & Stotten, London; now available in paperback by Lir), is his first-person account about traveling throughout Ireland looking for himself in every pub with his family name on it.

        Along the way McCarthy makes an unplanned stop—most of his stops are unplanned—at Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, a kind of Irish Williamsburg or Epcot Center set in rural County Clare between Limerick and Ennis in western Central Ireland.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
        "I recall Bunratty is one of the top tourist destinations in the country. It’s just a few miles from Shannon airport, which means that coachloads of people who were in the Scottish Highlands yesterday, and have to be in a Belgian chocolate factory tomorrow, can come and experience the real Ireland for a day, without have to waste time driving around looking for it. There’s a castle and a Folk Park, and an old thatched pub called Durty Nellie’s. I have a dim recollection of coming here as a teenager when we were visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins in Limerick, though there was no Folk Park then. The whole country shared that job in those days, but no one had thought to sell tickets."

BUNRATTY CASTLE — NOT AS FUNNY AS GRACELAND.

THE CASTLE
        "Bunratty Castle is a well-preserved, crenellated stone hulk on a creek of the Shannon estuary just a few miles north of Limerick. Though it featured in the Anglo-Norman troubles of the thirteenth century, most of the structure that survives dates from the fifteenth. I push my way through a coachload of amorous teenagers from Limoges and make my way into an impressive baronial hall. The stairwells and passageways are a congested collision of multilingual day-trippers. I haven’t been processed through an Attraction like this since Graceland, but at least Graceland was funny."

THATCHED COTTAGE AT BUNRATTY FOLK PARK — 'GLOOMY & SCARY'?

THE FOLK PARK
        "Outside in the Folk Park there’s a collection of traditional thatched stone-floored cottages, showing the way of life of the small farmer, the blacksmith, and so on. They’re kitted out with old beds and cupboards, and a collection of holy pictures that range in tone from the fairly gloomy to the deeply scary. These would have hung in almost every Irish home until 1961, when the Vatican had them replaced by pictures of President Kennedy."

        "Despite myself, I find the cottages quite atmospheric; they’re intended to be nineteenth century, but they’re not far removed from my recollections of Auntie Annie’s house in Dunmanway. The smell of smouldering turf compounds the effect. At any moment a wizened little lady dressed in black dould leap out and start force-feeding me ham and potatoes."

        "Beyond the cottages sits a reconstruction of a traditional Irish main street, which seems a bit pointless when the country’s stuffed with the real thing. There are a few shops, a schoolroom, and just the one pub, which seems hopelessly inauthentic."

    MAIN STREET, BUNRATTY FOLK PARK.
JUST ONE PUB. 'HOPELESSLY INAUTHENTIC'?

        "All around me people are taking photographs of each other outside the kind of shopfronts you’ll find in any small town in Ireland. I stroll up the street, a blur in the back of all their holiday snaps."

 

        "I walk up to Mac’s pub. It’s actually a very welcoming traditional interior, but the stigma of drinking in a fake pub in a theme park is more than my soul can bear."

 

        "I give an involuntary shudder. If a fake situation like this has the ability to churn up real emotions than what, precisely, is my objection to theme parks?

        "Organized fun, that’s what."

AUTHOR PETE McCARTHY'S
PREFERENCE: UNORGANIZED FUN.

Learn how to plan your own journey of discovery to CENTRAL IRELAND with Home at First.
(When you do, you can easily visit Bunratty for a day.)

HOME AT FIRST offers travel to four great regions of Ireland. Have your own cottage in
the SOUTH, the CENTER, the NORTHWEST, or the NORTH. Minimum cottage rental is one week.
Mix and match with other Home at First destinations in IRELAND
or throughout ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, and WALES.

For complete information and prices, see: IRELAND