Claire’s post below covers the highlights of our trip to the Black Rock Castle observatory and science yesterday. We took advantage of some relative sunshine (only one hail storm!) and walked 4 miles up the Old Black Rock Road (formerly Black Road Road, now Black Rock Road; Irish street names being somewhat arbitrary) to the Castle.
It’s at least a two, possibly 3, convent walk.
And, as on our walk down to Douglas, once you get out of the city center and into the detached housing portion of the program, pretty much every house has its own name.
Some come with a sense of humor, and some should be invited to Durham for the Beaver Queen Pageant.
Also, monuments. This one from 150 years ago, to Alexander McCarthy.
The Black Rock Road also passes through the old village of Ballintemple, now a suburb of Cork, before ending at the pier of Black Rock. The Castle Road takes you the rest of the way there.
There’s a pretty good view of the port from the Castle Road.
And of course, a pretty good view of the castle.
Our tour guide gave us a pretty good sense of the history of the castle. It was never really intended to be a fortification for defense of the city. More built in the early 1600s to scare pirates away. The British turned it for a time into an actual battlement, but for most of its existence, it was a party room for Cork’s elite trading families. Accordingly, it was burned down a couple of times in drunken revelry, fell into disrepair, and ended up in the city’s hands around the beginning of the 21st century. The Cork Institute of Technology’s proposal to turn it into a science center was selected for implementation, and it opened a little over a decade ago.
The bottom portion is the oldest, and is maintained to show its original function.
Cork Spring 