Kilduff Castle; And So Much More

So we are driving along in County Limerick, and Vicki shouts "pull over!" She is ever on the look-out for real estate bargains and the prospect of flipping something really interesting, and I knew at once she was on to something.

Indeed it was a castle, Kilduff Castle

Thus

Actually just a tower house (or tower of power,
as we called them in Scotland); but still quite
interesting

Alas, it failed our basic criteria of having at
least three walls and a roof

My examination of the premises certainly attracted the
interest of a flinklet of bovines passing by

But, no, this was not a prospective flipper

Looking around, I noticed I was standing in the midst of
someone's private exhibit...

19th century hand pump; we were to see many of
these in the western counties

Bog wood: and a big piece, too; shorter version: 8,000-10,0000
years ago much of Ireland was covered by dense conifer forests;
conifers retain much of the moisture that falls in their upper
limbs, etc; there were few bogs; then there was a warmer/dryer
climate, humans arrived and deforested the place, and, with
more climate change, the bogs began growing; occasionally,
a solitary tree would succomb and fall into the bog to be thus
preserved; dendrochronology with bog wood can be carried out
to the extent of 10,000 years...

So the cows kept lumbering by and at length I noticed they
were using a cow under-pass to get past the highway

We have seen cow over-passes before, but never an under-pass

Emerging on the other side

To join the much larger herd on the other side

All this going on at St. Anthony's Nursing Home and adjacent
lands