Saturday, January 25, 2014

On the way home from the market, we ran into a castle!

Last weekend we decided to get into some of the local flavor here (literally) and visit the Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary) Farmer's Market in People's Park.  It was a small market but amazingly varied in offerings.  They had, of course, tons of fresh local produce.  They also had an amazing selection of baked goods... so yummy.  There were art dealers, jewelry makers, book dealers, specialty teas, chocolates, and much more.  People's Park is a nice little park right on the water with a small playground for kids.  It was a cold day so we all had our warm drinks and more than enough pastries keeping our hands and insides warm.  (The cold really is a different kind of cold here.  It truly goes inside to your bones.  Brrrrrrrr!!!)

 

Then ... a funny thing happened on the way home...  

We decided to take a different route home to explore a bit more and we ended up driving straight up to ... A CASTLE!  That's the thing here... a castle just pops up in just about every town.  There's no fanfare or even attention paid to them.  It's like no one here even recognizes they're there.  But to us, they are magical!  They're a reminder of how deep the roots of this country actually are.  Generally, there is little information on the castles in many cases (none at all in this case).  

This one is in the town of Monkstown and called (duh) the Monkstown Castle.  By the way, we had to ask one of the people from the neighborhood what the name of the castle was and she, living on the same street, wasn't even quite sure.  We found it both amazing and funny that we can go to farmer's market, a rather mundane daily experience, and then, on the way, just happen upon a castle.  


I did a bit of research and found out the Monkstown Castle was built in the 13th century by Cistercian monks.  It was built to protect their rich pasture lands in the surrounding area. There was originally a wall around the castle where tenants would take shelter with their cattle and belongings in time of attack.  There's more information about this small but charming castle on the National Monuments Service website below.  It will be a good resource for us as we go to explore the many, many more castles along the way... 

Posted by Liz

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