That’s what I felt like I was saying all weekend when we took our little jaunt to Ennis. As usual, we had a guided tour arranged. This particular guide is a local historian (as in, she’s working on her PhD in local history), so she knew her stuff. Ennis isn’t a very big city (25,000 or so) and the downtown core is very compact. Super cute – now – I’m guessing 100 years ago it was less cute and more…slummy.
The town grew up around the Franciscan Friary that one of the Irish kings founded (late 1200s) to atone for – ready? – killing his brother. Not sure there’s enough buildings in the world to atone for something like that. But the friary is really beautiful.
I know that is a lot of photos on the friary, but we very much enjoyed our time there. A unique thing did happen with this particular property: it was taken and dismantled during the Reformation (don’t even get me started), turned into a court house, became an Anglican church, eventually deserted. The Office of Public Works took it over in the late 1800s and did some major restoration work on it. The Church of Ireland still held the title to the land at this time. But, in 1969 the Church of Ireland legally gave the deed to the property back to the Franciscans! How cool is that? By this time, the Franciscan friars had built a new church just around the corner. The old site became a beautiful museum and the new church is lovely as well. That was just the start of things that surprised us about Ennis.
Another historical tidbit is Daniel O’Connell. His is a name every school child in Ireland recognizes like American children know George Washington. In 1828 Daniel was elected to the British House of Parliament. The problem here was that Catholics weren’t allowed to be Parliament members. Nor were they allowed to own land and many other things that most people take for granted. Additionally, the people who voted for him were taking an immense risk – their landlords knew who they voted for as it was an open vote- and could choose to evict those who did not vote as the landlords thought they should! The British government realized that denying Daniel his seat in Parliament was likely to cause a huge backlash in Ireland – this was the beginning of the English government figuring out that they needed to allow the Irish to be Irish and to live their lives as they wish. Ennis is rightly proud that this event occurred in their city!
Another thing to add to your knowledge of random facts: as many of you know, the Irish were less than pleased to be ruled by the British and they were quite creative in coming up with ways of letting the British know their feelings. In 1880, an agent for an absentee Ennis landlord, a Captain Boycott, made demands on the tenants that were not acceptable to them. The tenants decided to try a new tactic – everyone shunned the captain. This led to a change in the way things were handled by absentee landlords as other tenants followed suit…they too boycotted and the term came into usage! These are excellent examples of peaceful protests working, although it might not have worked so favorably earlier in the British occupation.
Enough for your history lesson for today 🙂
Many cities in Ireland have a memorial of some type to the time of the Troubles and Ennis is no exception. The one we particularly liked was for the 100th anniversary commemoration –
We stayed at the The Old Ground Hotel. The exact age of the original structure is uncertain, but could date back to the 1500s. There was a jail on the site at one time, as well as the town hall. It has been a hotel since 1895 and is absolutely lovely.
We, surprisingly, are getting the hang of this traveling thing. We aren’t getting quite so lost, or wandering around just looking lost too often now. That could all change once we switch locations of course. One lesson that has been learned was in regards to our local bus. Before Sunday most every bus driver was courteous and helpful and didn’t scowl too much at the Americans. They stopped at the bus stops that they were supposed to stop at (kind of what you would expect from a bus driver, right?). And then there was the driver Sunday afternoon from Limerick to Newcastle West…he really wanted to be a Formula One driver, but was stuck driving a bus. We made it here in rather record time, but there were several times we gasped at his driving choices. At one point he passed another driver, going into the lane of oncoming traffic – not a big deal, except that there WAS oncoming traffic that he expected to get out of his way. Then he sailed right past our stop, and this is a regular stop! When the Husband yelled out to him “stop!”, he barked back “you didn’t tell me to stop”. We just got off quickly…and were happy to be unscathed and on solid ground. There is always one like that I guess…hopefully only one.
We’re going to explore in our area for the next week and enjoy our peacefulness…for it will come to an end next Thursday…the darling Daughter and her best friend (who, at this point, is also considered our daughter) will descend upon us. Looking forward to their arrival!