Our visit to Parke’s Castle resulted from a decision to make the most of our last day in Ireland and take an indirect path leading to Dublin Airport in the early evening. So we headed for Sligo, a
Rising three storeys tall, on the banks of Lough Gill, Parke’s Castle is a plantation era castle. In 1610 Robert Parke completed his fortified manor house on the site of an earlier fifteenth-century O’Rourke castle. He kept the walls of the original bawn – a spacious pentagonal defensive area – and demolished the O’Rourke tower house in the centre. The stones of O’Rourke’s tower were used to build the three-storey manor on the eastern side, eventually adorned with mullioned windows and diamond-shaped chimneys.
We left Parke’s Castle around 2pm and made our way back to Dublin arriving at the airport around 7pm as planned. Our flight is scheduled to depart at 10:25pm.
So here I am, sitting in the vacant chairs out the front of the closed Burger King franchise in the deserted food court, putting down my final thoughts before closing the laptop and boarding our flight for the long journey home.
It is with mixed feelings we leave Ireland; happy to be going home to our families and our normal lives but sad to leave such a wonderful and beautiful place and the people who live here.
Our trip to Scotland, England and Ireland has been long and at times exhausting, but mostly it has been magical and has given us memories to treasure for a lifetime.
We thank you for the opportunity of sharing our experiences and hope you’ve enjoyed reading our posts as much as we’ve enjoyed putting them together.
I am planning on publishing one more when I land back in Australia containing some statistics of our journey. So, until then, we love you all and look forward to seeing you soon.
Greg and Chris Belcher
Have a lovely and safe trip back!