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   Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:10:38 JST Infoseepage

   Woke up this morning enjoyed my Full Irish Breakfast outside looking at this wonderful castle. It's called Carrigafoyle in English. In Irish, it's Carraig an Phoill, which means something like Rock-of-the-Hole.

   #Ireland #Kerry #Castles

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:14:54 JST Infoseepage

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     The main existing structure is technically a tower house, although I would call it a keep. It was built to a very high standard with much higher quality stonework than is typical. The walls are quite thick, with two vaulted floors and a particularly wide spiral stair. It sat on an island with a series of walls, moats, towers and ditches around it providing additional lines of defense and had it's own dock capable of handling a ship of about 100 tons.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:20:17 JST Infoseepage

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     Only one bit of the stone outworks remains, the rest having been carted off long ago. You can still see some voids in the swampy ground where those additional walls and towers would have sat.

     The owners, the O'Connor-Kerry's, built the castle around 1490 and used it and a fleet of ships to exert a tribute (often paid in the form of wine) on merchant ships passing up the Shannon to Limerick and other places.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:24:21 JST Infoseepage

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     I imagine the family grew quite rich from doing so, and the castle has a lot of niceties, including a "solar" at the top with larger windows of very high quality. They also apparently had a dovecot built into one turret to provide a regular supply of eggs. This is about as nice as living in such towers got.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:29:47 JST Infoseepage

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     The castle was famously besieged in 1580 by Sir William Pelham as part of the Earl of Desmond's rebellion. He brought with him some 600 mens and 3 boats and most importantly, and assortment of cannon. On the opposite side was a mix of Irish, Spanish and Italian troops, including an Italian engineer, Captain Julian who had been given the task of improving the castles defenses.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:32:27 JST Infoseepage

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     The castle was taken in a siege lasting three days. While initial attacks were repulsed with much loss of life on the part of the attackers, eventually guns were brought off the ships and set up on a low rise to the west of the castle, about where an old church can be seen today. One of the ships was also able to range the castle with a gun mounted on the rear of the ship.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:33:46 JST Infoseepage

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     Ships sometimes mounted a few guns at their front "chasers" and stern which could be fired if chasing another ship or being chased. These were often long guns of highest quality and often had better range/accuracy than guns mounted for broadsides.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:35:18 JST Infoseepage

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     A diagram of the siege can be on site and it makes you appreciate how much more substantial the castle was at one time.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:44:13 JST Infoseepage

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     Eventually, the besieging army was able to concentrate fire and much of the western wall of the tower fell down, killing many of the defenders inside in the process. Ultimately, all who had defended the castle were killed or executed after, including the Italian officer, Captain Julian, who was hung a few days later.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:47:48 JST Infoseepage

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     The castle was being used to store many of the Earl's most precious possessions, which got sent onward to Queen Elizabeth as spoils.

     Other lesser castles quickly fell or were surrendered in short order, with the rebellion turning into a guerilla war which lasted until 1583, when the Earl of Desmond was killed in the mountains near Tralee, twenty someodd miles from here.

     #Ireland #Kerry #Castles

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:50:59 JST Infoseepage

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     After seeing the castle and the church nearby, I took a long walk around the edge of Carrig Island (Stone Island) which is adjacent to castle. I walked to large D shaped battery dating to the Napoleonic wars (early 1800's). The Irish had rebelled in the 1790's with assistance and occasional landings of troops from the French and the Shannon estuary was considered a prime target for invasion.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:53:46 JST Infoseepage

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     Martello towers were set up around the Great Britain and Ireland both, but the Shannon and Limerick were considered important enough to warrant a higher degree of protection, and so each battery mounted six 68 pounders and had heavily fortified blockhouses with a furnace for heating cannonballs red hot. The blockhouses also had two rooftop howitzers, which could fire about a mile.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 03:58:38 JST Infoseepage

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     That distance is important, as there was an identical battery set up on Scattery Island, north across the island, about 2 miles distance. So, in theory, an enemy ship trying to pass through the estuary and up the Shannon river would have been subject to fire from one or the other. There were at least six such batteries positioned along the Shannon to provide for it's defense.

     #Ireland #Kerry #Shannon #Limerick #Forts

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 04:04:49 JST Infoseepage

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     I was able to walk along the shoreline, skirting the more direct route on clearly marked road marked private property, and eventually came to the battery. The earthworks aren't very appreciable, just lumps and mounds, but I was able to find one of the stone gun emplacement and poke my nose inside the blockhouse for a minute.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 04:07:03 JST Infoseepage

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     The wooden floor has collapsed, dangerously so, but it is apparent from a dangling rope that some idiots have in the past scrambled up the fallen beams and use the rope to access the roof via a stair built into the blockhouse's back wall. I definitely wasn't up for that challenge, preferring not to die from being impaled on a 200 year old splinter.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 04:13:31 JST Infoseepage

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     Still, having grown up reading Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's naval adventure novels, many set during the Napoleonic era, I pretty much eat up anything connected to those time periods.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 04:14:25 JST Infoseepage

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     Visiting the shore battery, I also got a good look at Scattery island, across the water to the north, through my Nikon's telescopic lens. Wish I could visit the island, as in addition to the battery there, which from satellite imagery, appears to be in much better shape, there is also a number of religious sites including a Irish round tower. Sadly, they don't run tours this time of year.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 04:25:32 JST Infoseepage

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     This is what my lens was able to capture from 2 miles distance, significantly cropped. The blockhouse is to the left of the lighthouse.

     Would have liked to have visited Scattery. It's got some interesting history to it, including the burial places of two saints and it's also the island where Brian Baru killed Ivar, the last Viking king of Norse Limerick.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_of_Limerick#Death,_sons_and_descendants

     #Ireland #Kerry #Limerick #Vikings

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 07:59:59 JST Infoseepage

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     • Wokebloke for Democracy

     @dougiec3 My dad read them, but I haven't. I watched some of the Sean Bean series with him.

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     Wokebloke for Democracy (dougiec3@libretooth.gr)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Mar-2025 08:00:00 JST Wokebloke for Democracy

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     @Infoseepage
     Have you read the Sharp novels by Bernard Cornwell? His journey with Sharp through the colonization of India and through the Napoleonic War is detailed and well written historical fiction.

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 05:14:23 JST Infoseepage

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     • Wokebloke for Democracy

     @dougiec3 Maybe I'll download a few as audio books. I end up having a lot of time to kill walking and on the bus right now and have been listening to books mostly.

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     Wokebloke for Democracy (dougiec3@libretooth.gr)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 05:14:24 JST Wokebloke for Democracy

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     @Infoseepage
     I like the series okay, but the books are so-oo much more and better.