Day 12 - Markree Castle

Due to the horrendous events of last night, we slept in to around 830 am.  The first order of business of the day was to make our plan as to how we were going to get across Ireland to county Sligo and Markree Castle.  Melissa went through great trouble to book a castle hotel, looking for any castle within a convenient distance of one of our destinations.  Really, none of the castles were convenient, but we decided that if we had to drive in a country it would be Ireland.  I don't know the logic here, because Scotland has way fewer people, but it's what we chose.

After a few minutes of debate, we decided to rent a car from the Dublin Airport, as we could see that the highways were laid out nicely from there.  We definitively did not want to rent a car from the city center because it would not be a good place to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road shifting left handed.  

As we left the hotel, we spoke with the front desk to see if we could get comped breakfast for the sleepless night.  They told us some excuse about how guests caused the alarms, not them, and thus they were not comping anything.  They also said that pretty much all guests were complaining so they couldn't do anything.  This is not good logic, because now a hotel full of guests is going to tell a whole lot of people that this hotel sucks and does not care about their guests.  We are going to write to Best Western when we get back to the US to let them know this hotel has soured us on their brand.

Once at the airport, we picked up our car from Europcar.  It was a tiny black Hyundai I10, which was somewhere between the size of a Smart Car and a Honda Fit.  We purchased the GPS and the full array of insurance because we had no idea where we were going and our insurance does not apply here.

Initially it was really odd shifting lefty, and I did not do great at my first few junctions and traffic circles.  However, I got the hang of it pretty quickly.  We took the M1 to the M50, and then took the M4 (which turned into the N4 when it downgraded from freeway to highway) the rest of the way to Sligo. There were many small towns and speed traps along the way where speed had to be reduced from 100 km/hr to 50 km/hr.  Also, there was quite a bit of farm equipment clogging up the road.  

We stopped for lunch along the highway at Supermac's, which was a total and complete McDonalds rip off.  My Big Mac (or Supermac) was accurate, except it had too much of the special sauce.  We have been having fast food a few times here, but this time there was really no way around it as the rest stop options were limited between that and a Tim Horton's.

We continued onto Sligo and Markree Castle.  As we approached town, there was traffic circle after traffic circle, which allowed me to perfect my craft.  By the end of the day I was traffic circling like a boss.  

Once we arrived just outside of Sligo, we came upon the castle (editors note: the castle is technically in Colooney, just outside of the city of Sligo, but in county Sligo).  The entrance to the property was a sign of good things to come.

After winding down a long and narrow driveway, past fields of sheep and bare oak trees, we arrived a the main building.

To quote the late Bill King, "Holy Toledo!"  We are going to stay in a castle.  Until I saw it up close, I wasn't entirely into the concept, as I was more concerned with teaching myself to drive a new way and not killing the mother of my children (and Colton is literally counting the days until we return, so we have to not die).  Now I was on the castle train.

Upon entering the castle, we were greeted by a staircase leading up to the reception.

The reception room was one of the more spectacular rooms in the place, with old stained glass, towering and elaborate ceilings, a stone fireplace, and a grand staircase.  None of my pictures did this room any justice, as it was dark, like a castle usually is, and there was no perspective where I could get it all in frame.

At this point, we were shown our room by the friendly staff, and we were introduced to some of the history of the building.  The part of the castle we were staying in is the last part the original family lived in, once the castle had fallen into disrepair.  They essentially retreated to one wing while the rest fell apart.  

The longer history:  The land was originally owned by the McDonaugh clan.  In 1666, it was passed to the Cooper family to pay off a debt related to the Cromwelian war.  Over the years, they built a larger and larger country estate on their 36,000 acre property, as the Cooper family were some of the wealthiest and influential commoners in Ireland.  Though they were not royalty, they were deeply involved in Irish politics.  

Markree underwent an expansion in the late 1700s that was overseen by Francis Johnson, who is responsible for famous buildings in Dublin such as the General Post Office.  It was this expansion that took Markree from large country manor to castle.

In 1834, an observatory was built on the premises, which at that time contained the world's largest telescope.  They also built a meteorological recording station, where in 1881 the coldest temperature in Ireland was recorded (-18 C).  Only the meteorological station remains today.

In 1902, 30,000 acres were sold off by Brian Cooper (another family member with ties to Parliament).  During the Irish Civil War, the castle was occupied by troops who did great damage to the building.  Brian died in 1930, willing the castle to his son Francis.  Francis and his family had to retreat to the east wing (where we were staying) in the 1950s due to the state of the building.  By the 1980s when the next generation inherited, the castle was listed as a no hoper due to the severity of the repairs required.

In 1988, the castle was purchased by the current owners, who have been slowly and methodically restoring the building to its previous grandeur.  But enough with the history lesson...  Let's look at some more pictures!

One of the common rooms...  This served mostly as reception for the bar or restaurant.

The dining room was spectacular.  There were 3 of them just like this, which could be separated to accommodate wedding receptions or other events.  While we were there they were setting up for a wedding and guests were arriving.

As I mentioned above, there was also a bar.

And if your going to have a wedding, what wedding would be complete without a chapel?  The hotel keeper who showed us around said the curtains are over the glass due to some sort of regulation saying the religious imagery must be covered during the ceremony itself.  I need to do some fishing on this to get a better rationale.

After getting comfortable, we took a walk of the grounds.  The following are some pictures from the rear of the castle.  My travel buddy is looking more and more like Kenny from Southpark.

Some pictures from the side of the castle.

Really, the only slight on the castle was our room.  The room itself was nice, large, and warm.  It had a great view of the backyard.  It was a bit plainer than our surroundings, and the mattress was old and lumpy.  Other than that, this place gets an A+.

We spent a little over an hour walking around the castle, up stairs and down halls.  It would have been very easy to get lost in there.  Lots of stairs, hallways, and doors.

Eventually, we took a 19 minute drive into Sligo to check it out.  It was a neat small town, and the people were really friendly.  The shopkeepers just want to chat and share their country.  We also picked up some souvenirs for the family and were not charged the big city prices we have seen all trip.

We headed back to the castle and had an early dinner in the bar.  I had a risotto and a few Smithwicks, and Melissa had the Chicken Laksa.  For dessert, Melissa had a brownie and I had a hot whiskey.  All were delicious.

The castle was lit for the night, so I stepped out into the cold to snap a picture.

As WiFi does not travel through 3 ft thick stone walls very well, the internet only worked in the lobby.  We finished the night by blogging by the fire and Skyping on the grand staircase with a hyper 3 year old.