Muckross House, Killarney

So my plan of adding to one post every day didn't work, so I will post when I can, and go back and fill in later. Check in every day or so to see what I am up to.

The blogger app is still rotating my photos in random fashion. I promise to rotate when I can get on a real computer.

On with the narrative.

Muckross House in Killarney is one of those manor houses built for people with too much money, and not enough sense. I am finding that the manors in Ireland are the newest builds of this sort of thing. All trying to be like the Downton Abby, but those were built over centuries by very old families. Only the Americans like Hearst came after in building manors.

There is a lot about how Queen Victoria visited in August 1861. The house was 20 years old at the time. A wing was created and furnished just for her use. Small as she was, i cannot imagine her and Albert sleeping in this tiny bed. Draperies of the latest French damask for the dining room were delivered in time for the visit.

Let's put this in perspective. In the USA, the Civil War is about to break out. Victoria is trying desperately to be viewed as the caring, modern monarch promoting commerce and unity. Oh yeah the Irish people are experiencing the potato bite. People are starving to death on the road. Mass emigration for those that can manage it.

Now you have the picture note that she stayed only two nights. It is all summed up in the last line of a historic account: "The unstable financial situation of the Herberts in the late nineteenth century may have stemmed from the outlay involved in preparations for this Royal visit."

The part I really enjoyed however was "the basement" This was the downstairs, the kitchen. The laundry, the boot room. This is where it got real.

Here are some of my favorite photos with a few comments..

There were perhaps a dozen stoves. Bread stove, warming stove. A stove just for keeping water hot.

The wine cellar,which was not a lower room, but two rooms for keeping alcohol locked away.

This is the largest mortar and pestle. The pole is 2 meters.

I now harbor a desire to get some calamity ware and sneak it into some of these collections.

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June 13, 2025 at 3:53 AM

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