Visit to Dalkey Castle

Irish weather has turned around in the past few weeks and its been splendid. To prove the same the birds acknowledged with their sweet chirps and songs. To make the most of It, as usual I googled up a palce that is nearby. Dalkey is an island jsut off the coast of the seaside town of Dunloghaire and it has a great history. Before the Dublin and Dun laoghaire harbour were built to accomdate the larger merchant ships that needed deeper waters Dalkey was the main harbor to Dublin. Merchant ships offloaded their goods here and over road merchandise was carried over. After a few fatalities at Dalkey the harbour was built in late 1800's. To protect the warehouse at Dalkey small forts were built and the one I visited today was one of the best preserved Dalkey castle which is now a heritage center. To my surprise this was one of the best experience I have had of a historic site. There were two hostesses who were dressed the old ways and talked the old talk.

The first one was a housekeeper who told us how the archers would attack the ever present looters and what food was the most sought after. If you insist I will tell you that it was boar brain and boar eyeball stew. They even had an olden version of WC there which was in first floor, the house keepers duty is to flush it with a bucket after everyone uses it and shout out to notify soldiers below to stay clear and not to lookup or open their mouth. She even told her that she is totally looking forward to her bath which will be on her birthday every year. Following her amusing and entertaining presentation was the barber surgeon. Back in those days both profession was one and the same. She showed some of her archaic medical tools. Tools that she use to use to remove a tooth or amputate. Her philosophy is remove all the good tooth before they go bad and tonsure before you catch fleas. One of her first steps in diagnosis is taste the urine.'eeeewwwww'.
She sang the song ,which is to invite the people of the town to her for a medical treatment.

I loved how the atmosphere was created by these two artist, they kept addressing us as 'My lords' and for the contemporary answers I gave them they looked dumb found. The penultimate part of the heritage center was a DVD video presentation of Dalkey's history and then a tour by the grave yard and Church. I was impressed and it did get reflected on the Guests comments book.

I cycled around the Dun laoghaire town to end a very gratifying weekend.

For more pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/badri.nair/DalkeyCastle#