One man's castle is another man's adventure park
Repurposing history for entertainment and adventure
During a trip to Ireland, we toured both parts of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I make this distinction because there are quite a bit of politics involved that I, being poorly educated by much of my life choices on pop culture, American gossip and junk food, have little to know understanding of.
What I do understand is repurposing. On the trip through the Emerald Isle, through foggy and at times rainy weather we saw how many of the properties were being repurposed for uses other than to sit in ancient and crumbling grandeur.
Many of the forts, castles and churches we visited were used as museums and activity parks. Activity parks which aren’t quite “amusement parks”, in the don’t have roller coasters and are often just walking trails and guided tours through older properties.
Not surprisingly I recently found a website with castles and great estates for sale. Can you imagine? Imagine seeing ancient buildings that were once considered great estates, built to hold decades of people who believed it was their birthright to live in the grandest of estates.
Now centuries later they are turned into museums and tour grounds for people who would have otherwise been seen as serfs and peasants.
I can almost hear someone yelling “WHORE” as my mud trek dirty sneakers hit the cobblestones. Maybe not but anything was possible. Maybe it’s wishful thinking
The Rockingham Church of Ireland was on the property of Lough Key a museum and an activity park. The caverns and a history tour through the tunnels where the guide gave the history of maids and people who served the property.
They saved clocks from burning buildings. They waited to be allowed to enter the castles. They cooked and cleaned a home that would years later be roamed leisurely by tourists who found it difficult to return emails.
My favorite was the Ancient castle which was transformed by an Australian construction magnet into a hotel.
The last surviving heir, an elderly woman who in her 90s, could no longer maintain her property because it was costly, held onto the property.
She lived in a mobile home until the day she died. Clutching the last of her nobility as the rightful heir, in a crumbling estate.
The families all held out as long as they could until the heirs were long gone and know longer knew enough to claim their property.
I don’t blame or mock her for it. There’s something to be said to hold dear to whatever you can until your last breath. I’m sure there’s more to her story but her history is now in the hands of a corporation.
As we traveled, I wanted to believe fairy tales could be created. We drove through towns and wandered through caverns or stayed in hotels along rivers.
To be fair I also believed that murder mysteries lived here. And I was curious what mysteries were held in the bricks and stones of Ireland. Then I stopped to consider there were long decades of the mundane and how we repurpose the ordinary into something more all the time.
The moments of small town, pettiness where nothing happens until that one thing happens. It’s the mundane stories that lead to myth making where everything feels more exciting.
The small tavern that played local music with its crumbling walls felt like the musicians were there before all the great wars and would be there until the end of eternity.
Visiting the Enniskillen Castle Museum and walking around the town of Enniskillen felt as if I could wander in between worlds of modern and old for hours.
My traveling companions and I almost did. But we soon realized that stores were closing and none of us knew the numbers for taxis here. Lyft and Uber are called something else and none of us bothered to figure that out before we ventured off.
I guess that’s too is another way to repurpose the ever changing needs of the modern world.