Funky Irish music by Brendan Kelly
More funky Irish music by Brendan Kelly
The rooms at Ashford are complete with four poster beds
stand-alone baths and beautiful chandeliers. And if you're tempted to come
out of your room, you can
indulge in the seven-course tasting menu. John Jameson who, you by the way
shares his initials JJ with James Joyce, something Joyce was very happy about it
cos this was his favorite whiskey
And he mentioned it a few times in Ulysees. Well he founded this distillery
that's Jameson not Joyce, by the way, two hundred years ago in seventeen
eighty in this very site here in Dublin So basically
this started completely as a joke. It was a conversation between myself and my
brother and I'm sure you're going to meet him at
some point during the day but we were sitting down in our family's pub
which is Cronin just behind us
and it was coming to Denis's birthday
Come on
Cheers
Yeahhhh
Hold it up over your head so that when the bird comes down
the bird will go up over your face. Do you want to give that a go
That sounds horrible, No.
Medieval music. Caw
Am, ooh, hehe,
So I'm here with Oscar. Oscar, the eagle owl. So he's an eagle owl? Yup.What does that mean
Like he's a cross between an eagle and an owl. Oh no, no, not at all. He's
all owl, believe me.
I make my own treasure
Music plays. And there we have the treasure
In Ireland we had similar, it was called the cosmic library. The Druids
believed
the very same understanding
that the trees stand silently in non-judgment
and record everything that's
ever happened and if we need to draw on wisdom or knowledge
it's all in the trees. The Brehon law
was distributed by poets. The poets didn't carr the law in books. Tthey
embodied the law off by heart in their hearts
The most famous legend relates back to the 17th century
Oliver Cromwell and his army were raiding Irish villages. They came across
a herd of goats and all of them fled away except one
the King goat, Puck. He ran down to this village
Killorglin, to warn the village members, and they protected themselves
because of his warning, So to celebrate him and to thank him, they have this festival every year
in August
on the streets the first day. Loose?. Loose. No health and safety, no barriers
no hi-vis jackets. The second day then would be the cattle fair
which happens, still happens on the streets. Yeah we saw that. l with you yeah It happens with barriers
and a little more safety at the moment
and then the third day is called the scattering day
So the gathering
the Fair Day and the Scattering. We're here at the Lunasa Festival
and Lunasa comes from Lu, who was the God of arts and crafts
head and shoulders with downward
It wasn't always possible at the start of combat
In particular to be doing sideward blows
because you were hitting your own comrades, aren't you.
You're not going to get a good cut in otherwise
So
you put first the padding that will protectyou from the blunt force
okay
Then you put the coiffe
(distant) You can catch the shield and hook it
(distant) Stick it in behind someone's leg and... Is my head too big
Of course Not
Well okay This is how you wear rings
Wow, its really heavy
yeah and usually on top of that people would wear
helmets like this little helmet
which, so they would
walk around all day in that oh yea
Its heavy And this is the layer that has the corsetry in the bodice
there are forty two pieces of whalebone in the bodice
and its laced down the two sides. I cannot dress myself
I have to have my ladies lace me in and tighten it
Beep Funky music
So we're just outside the fisherman's cottage so its kind of a humble setting
And we're about to see how butter is made
So we're going to visit an old style schoolhouse now from the nineteenth
century
and talk to the headteacher just about what education back then was all about
that's okay then. This school was opened in 18.. I've already forgotten
I'd get an F if I was in your class
Now you see. I'd have to punish you, yeah. It would hurt me much more than it would hurt you.
They were built in 1835 to teach the boys agriculture and to stop
Irish being spoken
beep Jazzy music
Boing
And so Max, we just watched a performance by you could you tell us what
was that about? What kind of things do you do?
Well this is circus. I put it in the category of circus
but actually it is a bit of physical theatre
acrobatics and also object manipulation
Ok yeah. So my background always come from circus
Crowd cheers and music plays
Igor Sparks is my name. I'm the village blacksmith here
Okay, In King John's castle here.
So this typical helmet is Viking time? Viking time.
Like that idea about the horns coming out of it. That's pure Hollywood. I thought you said mormal
You said Norman, Hehe. I'm not good with the names either. That's if you're on horseback.
not even yeah I know that so that I did that happen. That's if you're on horseback
Not easy to see there. No its not. They'd have a little padding in it. Can you see? Not really.
Your hair is....My hair is in the way. Not good to have long hair in the Norman days
No, they'd be all tied back.So you'd have your sword
and the family jewels the man would be removed. They'd be snipped off. Oh my God. Yeah.
Stones or rocks
and boiling water and boiling oil. And we would have made our way up to the top of
the castle walls and thrown
down at people