King John's Castle

Before I get to the castle, I have to say, you guys are hysterical. Kendra gives me homework (I'm on it, buddy!), Mom tells me to get off my ass and go to the Sin Bin (can I just start with the concert at the Stables next week?), and Anne tells me to pay better attention to the Other World on campus (I'm lookin', I'm lookin').

Anyway, back to the castle...I went down into the city today, Saturday, to visit King John’s Castle. When I had walked into town earlier in the week, I walked on the main road, cuz that’s all I could see on the crappy tourist map I had. However, on that very trip, I bought an OS map of the city, so this time I was able to find an exquisitely beaucolic riverside path that runs almost all the way into the city and is a little shorter than the main road. This path was apparently an old tow road and has sweet little bridges over the tributary streams into the Shannon. There are benches along the way and little platforms for people to fish from. As it was a Saturday, many people were out enjoying the weather, cycling, walking, and fishing. It takes about 40 minutes to walk into town this way. However, there are two difficulties with the path. First, dog owners are not very fastidious about picking up after their dogs, and one has to keep a sharp eye out for deposits. Second, part of the path follows a canal that used to cut out an oxbow of the river when the river saw lots of traffic. It is clearly no longer in use, and weeds have grown up thickly in the canal. In some places white plastic bags of garbage bloom like lilies gone badly wrong, but swans still swim through the accumulated crud like lotuses rising up from the muck. I saw a few once they had made it back out into the Shannon, and they were highly involved with cleaning themselves up. They would stand up and flap their wings to dry them, and the sound was like airplanes going by.

Along the canal are also housing projects and the associated public alcohol consumption. All the university safety talks harped on not walking alone without a penis which, for me, is distinctly problematic. I was hoping that being on the edge of Old-Ladyhood would substitute. I walked along the canal path without incident into the town, but on the way home, there were two unshaven, tattered men hanging around a narrow section of path. I walked past them with great purpose, looked at them, and gave the all purpose “hiya” noise. They made the “hiya” noise back and all was well. Then there were the four staggeringly drunk young men tottering around the brink of the canal. As I approached, they lurched to the bank side of the path, as a heaving group, all grabbed rocks, and lurched, as a soggy unit, back to the other side of the path. They then proceeded to enthusiastically, but without much coordination, hurl the rocks into the canal. I assumed it must have been big hairy bats in the canal, and I walked through them with my “great purpose” walk but without the “hiya” noise. They were evidently preoccupied with the effect of their rocks on the water because as I monitored their location, moving quickly away down the path, they remained where they were. The rest of the walk was without incident, not that those were really incidents; they just felt like it cuz I had to brace for them.

In town, I visited the pile of rocks called “King John’s Castle”. It is actually much more complicated than just a castle funded by King John in the 12th century. In 927 the Vikings established a settlement at the mouth of the Shannon called Hymlik. This is where all the notice boards start counting. However, I betcha there were people here well before that because there are loads of Neolithic structures in the area, and the O’Brien’s and MacNamara’s were documented as well established in the area just one hundred years later, so they were probably who the Vikings had to kill in order to set up shop. Anyway, the unpopular King John (he was only 5’5”! (according to one notice board)) was made King of Ireland by his dad Henry, and he decided to do the kingly thing and set up administrative centers in easy places where you could get a boat. That would be the old Viking strongholds of Dublin, Wexford, and Limerick. Things were quiet for a while until the O’Brien’s wanted control of the river, so there was a fight. Then William of Orange wanted the location, so there was a fight. Then Cromwell wanted it, etc. So this fortification represents all the fights people had in order to control the mouth of the Shannon. Most of the unhappiness was in the 17th century, and since then there has been relative poverty stricken colonial peace. In the 1930’s they build public housing, 12 units, inside the castle curtain wall! I'm sure they just considered the castle a waste of space at that time. Suddenly in the 1990’s Limerick started to get EU cash and began to clean up. They tore down the public housing and brought in the archaeologists. They have a snazzy steel and glass interpretive center, a slide show outlining the various fights over the last thousand years, some extraordinarily ratty historical models, a melodramatic film where actors sort of re-enact the final siege of the castle, and some exposed scientifically contextualized parts of the last archaeology sites. It seems like there was a bunch of cash infused into what is supposed to be a big tourist draw, but not a lot of interpretive expertise.

The gift shop has jewelry, post cards, books, shot glasses, key chains, and mead from the other better preserved castle called Bunratty castle. Bunratty castle is way more tourist oriented with private funding. They hold “medieval dinners” and have live interpretive shows and all. According to the lady at the gift shop, “The mead sort of sells itself, but most people buy post cards.” The gift shop did not really capitalize on selling anything that would relate to or emphasize the specific historical context of the castle. Of course, the main historical event people remember is that the Treaty of Limerick in 1649 was where the Irish finally surrendered completely to English rule. What do you sell for that? Commemorative handcuffs?

I checked in with the young man who was supposed to demonstrating coin minting. He was deadly bored. He was working at the castle as a summer job until his enlistment in the army came up. He didn't know what he would specialize in cuz they tell you once your're in. He claimed it was the best paying job he could find "once yer done with the fockin' skool". I wondered to him if other jobs might kill him like the army might, but he shrugged and said, "Ye go one way or another."