I am back in Ireland and I plan to walk through as many castle and abbey ruins as I can!
As much as I love walking through castles and abbeys I have found not all the castle ruins are the same. There are some castle ruins that are seriously cool to walk through. These particular ones people are walking through at their own risk, without a guide and usually with no other tourists around. These are also the best ones to walk through. My daughter and I can stay in these for hours if we had the time. We also have this habit of touching each one, just so that we can say we touched that particular ruin.
Then there are the castle ruins like Trim Castle where you can take a walking tour. These are also very cool to walk through. Hearing about those castles history is also nice and informative. The only thing that stinks about those castles are you can’t walk where ever you like. There are parts of those castles that are blocked off. I imagine for the safety of people, but I want so badly to go into those areas. Don’t worry I always stay with the group. However my eyes do tend to wonder.
The third and last of these castles are the ones where they have been renovated on the inside and restored to it’s original look or modernized somewhat. These are the castles where when you go inside you can see furniture and the plaster from where they did some fixing up. These castles sadly are my least favorite. They look so cool on the outside, but then you go in and it’s like they destroyed the ancient look from all the fixing up they did. It’s kind of gotten to the point now where my daughter and I rate the castles. We do find the ones that have been fixed up to be very disappointing.
Lastly we have ancient abbey ruins. These ruins are just as cool to walk through as ancient castles. Sometimes they are more fun to walk through. The history behind them is completely fascinating. We enjoy looking at the different grave stones. Some are sad. Some are interesting. There happened to be one just recently that had the sir name of my mom’s family – McCann – whether this man was a relative of mine I don’t know and probably will never find out. It was cool to see my mom’s families name there though.
I would love to see all the castle and abbey ruins in Ireland. This how ever is something that will take a very long time. Probably years since there is only so much time I get to spend in Ireland when visiting. Not to mention it’s impossible to see ALL of Ireland in one shot. I take what I can when I can and I love it.
Kathleen Smith is an author and blogger. Her books are filled with memories both happy and sad. They will make you laugh and cry. Among these books is Miscarriages My Story