June 24th: A Knight in a Castle

In the bar of the Markree Castle having a cold beaded glass of Chardonnay, as you do in the bar of your castle. The bar is very old, but not quite as old as the rest of Markree Castle because bits were built on over the years. Markree is a few miles south of Sligo Town, and it's the real thing. Less of a hotel pretending to be a castle than the reverse. We parked in the carpark and tried to figure out where the actual entrance was. The main contender seemed to be a forbidding sort of archway that led directly into a steep set of dark stairs.

 I left the luggage below because this really didn't look like it could be the lobby of a hotel. Big set of dark wood doors at the top of the stairs led directly into a giant hallway, complete with oversize fireplace and log fire. Lots of dark wood, big staircase, stone tables, stained glass, and oh yeah, over there in the corner a tiny hotel reception desk!

Everything in the Markree was big and heavy, dark but not spooky. Narrow winding staircases. Creaky wood floors. Heavy tapestries. The dining room had gold gilded powder blue Louis Philippe molding, done by Italian artists in the mid 1800s.

This is where we shall have our toast and cereal, thank you very much!

Our room was up the main staircase...

...along the gallery...

...up another staircase, through a big square inner room that had no obvious purpose, through two doors, across a tiny hallway, and finally our door was crammed in under a staircase! The room was gigantic, which made the beds look kind of tiny. 
Downstairs there were many sitting rooms, each huge with its own fireplace and scattering of sofas and easy chairs. Outside, the grounds were sort of wild and untamed. A group of wild horses galloped across the fields. There was a curious well...

and a river and it all seemed to stretch off to the horizon.

We had an excellent time inhabiting our castle. We sat in as many of the chairs as we could, and did things that castly sorts of people do, though we were not very sure what things these were.

  I thought about all the people who had been through the castle, lived there in 1640 and 1845 and 1912. What did they all do? Not very much, by all accounts. So we followed suit.

We never got to see the ghost who reportedly haunted Room 7. She was a kitchenmaid, who had appeared to numerous guests over the years. However, I can safely say we will never forget staying at Markree Castle.