Servant bells and peat-fueled fires

Last weekend I stopped by Muckross House on my way back to Limerick. It is one of the few Victorian mansions built (/remaining?) in the Republic of Ireland. Let's be honest: my main reason was to find an Irish analog of Downton Abbey.



The estate is nestled in the Killarney National park, which affords the grounds some spectacular features. Imagine waking up to this view every day!

Imagine waking up to this view!
"There are few who would not approve."

The mansion was built with 65 rooms in the Tudor style in 1843. After being given a lead time of six years, the owners added major improvements for Queen Victoria's visit... and nearly went bankrupt doing so! Apparently they wanted to wow the queen so much that she would bestow a title on the owners. Unfortunately, shortly after her successful visit, Prince Albert died and she mourned for the rest of her life, forgetting the Muckross House in her grief.

The house was finally willed to Ireland as a Natural Park in the 1930s, and the house sat, untouched for several decades. It now serves as a museum.



















Outside the house, I saw a man leading a cart-laden mule down a path, I followed them to what I thought was an Irish Shangri-La: a series of cottages, each one an improvement over the last! I walked in, and the lady of the house was serving buttered bread that she'd made in her peat-fueled fire.









But my hopes of a genuine turn-of-the-century village were dashed; the cottages were only replicas of similar ones in the country side. But I still got fresh bread, so I think I came out ahead.













The last residence was a multi-roomed dwelling, which reminded me so much of Austen stories that the opening credits to the BBC "Pride and Prejudice" played ad nauseum in my head. Just watch my walk-through and try not to hum it!

Actually, I did find a small piece of a Shangri-La of sorts; I got to talking with one of the cottage ladies about peat as a fuel and an insulator, and she mentioned something about the modern process by which peat is harvested today. "Excuse me, but peat isn't just a tourist item now? You actually use it?" Oh, love," she responded, "with the price of oil gettin' so high, many people are still using peat to heat their home. In fact, I spent about 500 euro this past winter on it, meself!" coooooool. I had no clue that it was still in common use, but then, I guess that's one reason to go exploring: to learn more about the world (and sometimes about yourself).

***for those whose google and wikipedia are broken, peat is a mass of partially decayed vegetation that is formed over thousands of years of accumulation and decomposition. It is a precursor to coal and has been used as a fuel in Ireland since at least the 17th century, even perhaps ~1000 years ago. It is generally considered a non-renewable resource, but more on that later.