Castle Visit #2 | Day One

This is our second visit to grand ole Tullamore and the Charleville Castle. It was also teammate Gillian's birthday, so to celebrate we picked up trash at the castle all morning. Well, actually, it wasn't for her birthday, we thought it would be nice if we volunteered a little, since we've been given full, unsupervised access to the castle. There was a "life festival," AKA hippy party, at the castle and we volunteered for the next-day clean-up team. We didn't know we'd be the only clean-up team:(



The afternoon we spent at the Offaly Country Historical Society. They were excellent people, but trying to get history out of them was kinda hard. Since the family is still alive, they hestitated to bring up anything negative - which is the primary theme to our project:) For instance, we asked the historian if the family was involved in slave trading. They said not that they've heard of. But yet, the castle is filled with slave boy statues and symbolism. Hmmm...

Oh well. Here's a picture of me and Mary.


At the entrance of the castle is this great tree, nicknamed, "King Oak." It's supposed to be one of the oldest Oak trees in Ireland somewhere between 400 and 800 years old. The branches extend out over 30 feet and touch the ground. The Charleville family believed that when a branch fell, a family member died, so they propped up the branches with wooden slabs.