Ireland 2021 Day 2

Having a full night’s sleep made all the difference today! I was definitely able to enjoy the places I visited more fully than I had yesterday. Now, onto the sites.

I spent the morning at the Irish National Heritage Park, just west of the town of Wexford. The park tries to recreate some of the everyday buildings of Irish history from 9000 years ago up to the last big Viking/Norman invasion of about 900 years ago.

Now, I walked through the park in a weird order because I misunderstood where the first talk was supposed to take place and then I just went with it. The walk is supposed to start with some examples of possible hunter gatherer dwellings. I say possible as not much, if anything, remains of their dwellings so they make some guesses based on what little they have. They’re still nifty and something I have never seen before!

Next they moved to some of the dwellings early farming peoples might have made. They even admit that they don’t know that they lived in these as many were found to have burned down, possibly on purpose. So, they fall back on the “ceremonial purposes” explanation which can usually be translated to “we don’t know”.

An example of a type of tomb before all of the covering stones would have been added.

A recreation of a common stone circle found throughout Ireland.

Next they had am example of a ring fort. Their version was smaller and had a wooden palisade. Others that I have seen had stone walls but those are more likely to last over centuries.

The forts would have protected a well off farmer’s livestock and the larger ones would have been for lords or chieftains. Basically, no one trusted their neighbors.

Next up, they had a recreation of a small monastic village. Inside the church there was a documentary running where I found out that Ireland’s conversion to Christianity had been, relatively, bloodless. I also found out that it is much more comfortable to be inside when it’s raining at the park!

I did not know that Irish crosses were originally painted.

No smoke holes in any of the buildings so they are only somewhat accurate.

There was also an example of an early mill for grinding wheat corn, if you hear about corn from before Columbus they mean wheat. Now the really interesting thing about the mill is that it does not have a large wheel like I have come to expect. Instead it has a small fan-like device in the water with a single pole going up into the mill house. This turns a small grindstone. Looks like the same size as the hand ones but I bet it was a whole lot easier!

The final recreation is of a cook pit of the style found all over Ireland. They would heat rocks, then toss them into the pit when it was filled with water. Tests show this only took a few minutes to get the water boiling. They would then place straw wrapped meat into the water to cook. I guess this was very popular at the time given the numbers of these pits found throughout the country.

Next up was an Irish Crannog. The type they chose to recreate was one that would have been used by a chieftain or lord. The ceiling in the place is amazing and weighs 8 tons!

Next the walk moves into the Viking era. The buildings by the boat house are based on the dimensions of a building foundation found in the town of Wexford during some construction.

As an extra treat, someone was filming a Viking documentary at the boathouse! There were several men in Viking dress near the entrance to the park and I was asked if I was there for the filming. I should have lied and said yes! I never did see them filming anything and the men must have been dying in the wool cloaks because I was sweating up a storm in just a simple shirt.

The final part of the walk was uphill to a recreation of a Viking/Norman ring fort that was similar to one that had stood just a short distance away. The white color is accurate as they would make the structure of wood then cover it with plaster and paint it with lime to make it more impressive.

It started to rain pretty hard at this point so I can only tell you that the fort now holds the park’s falconry exhibit with multiple birds of prey.

After an unremarkable lunch in Wexford I went to the Johnstown Castle. I found out after entering the grounds that you cannot seem to go into the castle. The grounds were interesting but not stunning. It seems like they are trying to replant many of the gardens but they are not there yet. I did not spend anytime longer than necessary to walk through the main grounds. There were not many write ups on the grounds so I do not have much information on the castle.