Well I'll Be

Day Seven

The antlers of an extinct Irish Deer in the banquet hall of an extinct Irish line of aristocracy

On Day Six I had been given some hope of finding living relatives still in Cashel.  I had an address, a last name of Phillips and a description of a woman in her seventies who wore glasses.  We went up to the door of Number One Cathal Brugha Lane and knocked on the door.  No answer.  I knocked again.  This time a very thin young man, about twenty, with braces on his teeth and tattoos all over his forearms and knuckles comes around from the backyard to check us out.  This quest of mine forces me to use whatever humor, charm or friendliness I can come up with on the spot, and have my impertinent questions delivered with some coherence and brevity.

"Hello, my name is Monica and this is my husband Steve, we are from America and we are looking for a woman at this address with the last name Phillips.  We think she may be a relative."  In the U.S. I would have thought maybe this young man would give us an unfriendly syllable or two.  But he was very nice to us, said he thought a Michael Phillips lived up at the next corner, and we should try there.    I thanked him for putting up with genealogical questions from distant Americans.  As we walked up the street, Steve asked a man walking briskly by if he knew where the Phillips place might be.  He said "Yes, and there is the man himself right there"  Before we could catch him he had gotten inside.  So again,  we knocked on the door. My knees were knocking too. I don't much like intrusion in either direction.

We stood on the porch and introduced ourselves and I asked him if he was indeed a Phillips as the neighbor had said.  "Aye -I am, please come in"  ( I think he said aye, maybe he stuttered).  My interior mind was going 'OH NO, imposition on our part!'  Exterior words were "thank you, that is very nice."  His wife Noreen was a little chilly at first but my spiel was as bubbly and to the point as I could make it.  It turned out that this Phillips was not related at all to our Phillips but we began to call each other cousin anyway and laughed about how many Phillips there are.  We stayed at most ten minutes and as I went out the yard gate I realized we had not gotten his first name, just his last. I guess since he wasn't kin I completely dismissed the formality of asking his full name.  Rude Americans!

Sometimes a dead end is a relief.  If there were no living Butler/Phillips relatives in Cashel we could just relax.  Why not then stop the search and travel to the nearby town of Cahir (pronounced Care) and do some straight forward tourism of a castle we had been encouraged to check out?

Here is a panorama of that castle along the Suir (pronounced Sure) river.  Please note the following photo to understand the power of the spheres of woo hoo operating in our lives.

Cahir Castle, built in 12th century, and owned by one family from 1375-1961

Baronry? Castles? Wealth?  Where do cattle come into that?  Where does famine?  Anyway we got a kick out of pretending the Cahir Castle could have been ours.  Did anyone catch the irony of Butlers calmly and carefully handing over their castle to Lord Inchiquin in 1647, who then killed hundreds of Cashel citizens (if not thousands) and would lead a young Butler to risk his freedom two hundred years later to protest at Inchiquin's Cashel home base in the middle of town.  No?  Well then you just aren't as excited as we are.

I have decided to spare you the details of the architecture of defense of Cahir Castle and all the pictures I took of them.  I will spare you the arrows from the ramparts, the bullets from the gun holes, the hot oil, animal fat, rocks and arrows from above doorways, the missiles of early germ warfare of dead animals and rotten yucky things, the tripping stairs, the traps beyond the first gate, the general ugliness of the period and leave you with only the one welcoming cross that greeted anyone who stepped over a Butler threshold into the family keep.

This was a crossbow porthole to pierce the armor and flesh of visitors from America who wished to know if you were perhaps one of their relatives

While we are talking of nasty things —Steve wants me to question you all about whether you know the origin of the word Wardrobe.  In the olden days of castles a wardrobe for clothes was called a garde-robe.  Oddly this word was also synonymous with toilet or biffy or shitter or whatever you call the place in the castle that hung either over the river or was cleaned out once a year.  Clothes were stored in the same room because the ammonia from the accumulated mass of blecch gave off ammonia which repelled lice. 

The garde-robe or royal coat closet of the Butler family about five stories about the River Suir

Not one of the Baron Butler's family actually wanted to return to the castle after Inchiquin took over, though the family owned the land until 1961.  They built a number of much nicer less fortified homes in the area. One of which we also visited.

The 10th Baron Cahir, aka the first Earl of Glengall aka Robert Butler and his wife built this sweet folly, known locally as the Swiss Cottage, in the "cottage orne" (or-nay- I don't have an accent mark) manner in the beginning of the 19th century.  Completed in 1810 its rustic charm was only used for day outings - picnics or recitals or resting.  No one from the family ever stayed here.  Restored in the 1980s it was a wonderful treat for us at the end of a mile and half walk from the Castle.

The Swiss Cottage 1810- rustic thatch, trellis work, roses and whimsy

I have to say I am not wishing I had been one of the 'fortunate' ladies of the Butler house in the 14th Century.  Life was brutal, cold and restricted.  In some places it still is today as well.  I am grateful for my ease and joy.