On Monday, June 3, we visited Dunluce Castle, part of the Causeway Coastal route a bit farther west than Giant’s Causeway. The first castle on the site was built in the thirteenth century, and three centuries later, Queen Elizabeth I’s Lord Deputy of Ireland laid siege to it to quell an Irish uprising. Most of the ruins that we saw and walked through were rebuilt as a manor house in the 1600s. Fun fact: the surrounding town that grew around it had some of the first indoor toilets in Europe. Another fun fact is that after one of the ships from the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the rugged coastline nearby, the cannons were salvaged and installed at the castle gatehouse. For fans of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, one final note of interest is that this castle is thought to be the inspiration for Cair Paravel.
Photo by Adriana Guevara
Photo by Kiara Blackshire
But for a sense of how our day there went, we’ll hand the story over to Kiara and Gracie.
–Jessica and Kyle
Dunluce castle was extremely surreal. We’re not sure why, but because we was expecting a full-blown intact castle, we were a bit disappointed with what we saw when we first arrived. Once we began to walk around the ruins, however, they were enchanting, and felt all King Arthur-y. Imagine a tiny destroyed castle on top of a high cliff, surrounded by a giant body of water. It still had one full archer’s tower intact. The stairs up to the archer’s tower are extremely narrow, and took some time to climb if people were going down, but the wait was worth it.
Kiara in the tower.
It was fun to read about how the rooms throughout the ruins had been used in their original state, and to imagine how the people that lived there once went about their daily lives. The most striking things we found were what seemed like random holes in the walls—good spots for hide-n-seek—which we later discovered were ovens.
The site brought out some students’ inner warriors. They bought swords to play with while walking around the castle. There was a particularly epic battle between Gracie and Lydia in what used to be a grand hall.
From left: Gracie, Madeleine, Kiara, and Lydia. Timer photo by Kiara Blackshire.
Sir Brenton, by Kiara Blackhire
From left, back: Leo, Thomas, Magaly, Hannah, Lindsey, Lydia, Gracie, Rolando. From left, front: Brenton, Kiara, Kyle, Mariana, Adriana, Jessica.
Towards the end of our trip, many of us gathered in the small museum just to warm up, but ended up fascinated by the restructured miniature of the original castle, as well as more information about the lives of people who had lived there.
Photo by Kiara Blackshire
Before we got back on the bus home—we’re seasoned public transit riders now—we stopped at an ice cream truck next to the entrance of the castle. It was probably the best ice cream that we’ve ever had. Overall, the experience was well worth the cold and rubble.
–by Kiara Blackshire and Gracie Stevens
