On February 16, the BC students studying in Cork went on a Boston College-sponsored trip to Bunratty Castle near Shannon Airport for a medieval banquet. The place is a total tourist trip, but it was a very cool experience nonetheless, and we got to hear some great music, eat some delicious food, and sample Bunratty's signature meads and wines. The castle (which is the largest tower house in Ireland) is surrounded by a "folk park," which is just a group of buildings constructed in a 19th Century Irish style. We only spent a couple minutes in the folk park before heading to the castle, which had been fully restored around 50 years ago and was lavishly decorated with medieval tapestries, antlers, dowry boxes, and other adornments (though almost nothing was original to the castle). We were greeted by actors in colorful costumes, speaking in a stereotypically medieval dialect, and enjoyed a harpist and fiddler in the great hall for a bit while trying mead and salted bread. After that, we went to the banquet hall, feasted on a four course meal, listened to some more music, and finally left around 8:00 (so the actors could prepare for another feast at 8:30.)
This is the folk park...there wasn't a lot to it.
This was one of Guiness's major ad campaigns at one point.
Our first look at the castle.
The great hall had some really cool decorations. Its hard to tell from the photographs, but these antlers were massive.
These pictures didn't come out very well, but the tapestries, while faded, were very impressive.
The harp was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
The banquet hall was decorated with armor and muskets from several different centuries.
We were entertained by the minstrels during and after the meal; while their choice of music centraintly catered to the tourist crowd (Danny Boy, etc.), it was still very beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment