Bunratty Castle
— — a tower that learned to wait.
Not only on a wall.
“A tower house on the River Ratty, eight miles west of Limerick. The fourth castle to stand on this riverbank. The first three burned or were pulled down between the 1250s and the 1350s. This one was built around 1425 by the MacNamaras, kept by the O'Briens, then left empty for the better part of three centuries. Lord Gort bought it in 1954 and put a roof back on it. By 1960 the public could walk in. The walls are thick enough that summer takes its time getting inside.
Bunratty Castle, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Bunratty Castle stands on the south bank of the small River Ratty in County Clare, eight miles west of Limerick on the main road to Ennis. The site sits at the upper edge of the Shannon Estuary tidewater, on what was once a low island in the river. Four successive castles have been built here. The earliest, a wooden ringwork raised around 1250 by Robert de Muscegros, was followed by a stone structure in 1277, a third castle that fell to Irish forces in 1353, and the present tower house, built around 1425 by Sioda MacNamara. Shannon Airport sits roughly seven kilometres to the west.
The present castle is a tower house, the dominant secular form in late-medieval Ireland. It is a tall stone keep designed as much for residence as for defence. Four storeys of locally quarried limestone rise to a parapet walk, with twin pairs of square corner towers joined by tall pointed arches at the top. Walls run about three metres thick at the base. Restoration began in 1954 when Viscount Gort purchased the ruin and worked with the medievalist John Hunt to return the rooms to their fifteenth-century plan. The Lord Gort collection of medieval furniture, wall hangings, and stained glass, much of it gathered across Europe, was installed during the same six-year restoration.
The castle and the surrounding Folk Park are operated by Shannon Heritage and open daily except Christmas Day. The combined ticket covers both. The Folk Park, laid out across twenty-six acres beside the castle, reconstructs a nineteenth-century Irish village with thatched cottages moved from across Munster, a working post office, and a small farm. The medieval banquets in the Great Hall are a separate ticket and have run since 1963, with two sittings most evenings in the main season. Bunratty sits about ten minutes by road from Shannon Airport, which has made it one of the most-visited castles in the west of Ireland.