Bunratty Folk Park. View of the Golden Vale famhouse in Bunratty Folk Park, Co. Clare. These dwellings, in the tradition of the long single-storey thatched houses, are spacious and well built.
Bunratty Folk Park. Front view of a Bothán Scóir, a labourer's cottage or 'cabin', in Bunratty Folk Park. Most of these houses were of one room only and of poor material. This example is one of the better ones, being built of rough stone, mortared with clay.
Bunratty Folk Park. Internal view of Bothán Scóir, a labourer's cottage, in Bunratty Folk Park. The roof timbers are rough saplings. The chimney is a four-sided funnel framed with rough timbers with traverse rungs through which hay rope or sugán soaked in liquid clay had been woven; the outer and inner surfaces of the chimney were then finished off with another coat of clay. A home-made straw saddle hangs on the brace-tree which supports the canopied hearth.
Bunratty Folk Park. The Shannon Farmhouse in Bunratty Folk Park. This house was removed from Shannon before the construction of the Airport and reconstructed at Bunratty. It is typical of the smaller farmhouses of South-East Clare having a kitchen-living-room in the middle, a bedroom at each end, and extra sleeping accommodation in a loft at one end. There is another loft at the other end for storage.
Bunratty Folk Park. The hearth of the Shannon Farmhouse, Bunratty Folk Park. The open fire is at floor level and the chimney is built of stone. The door to the left of the chimney leads to a storage room.
Bunratty Folk Park. View of box bed and gramophone in the parlour of the Shannon Farmhouse, Bunratty Folk Park. In this house, one of the bedrooms was converted into a parlour - a 19th century development in imitation of the bigger houses.
Bunratty Folk Park. The Mountain Farmhouse in Bunratty Folk Park. This is a typical specimen of the smaller farmhouses of the upland region of West Limerick and North Kerry. It is a three-roomed house, with kitchen parlour and bedroom, and a spare bed in the loft.
Bunratty Folk Park. The hearth of the Mountain Farmhouse, Bunratty Folk Park.The chimney hood is of wicker on a wooden frame, plastered over, leading intyo a small channel which ends in an external chimney of stone . The flagstones on the floor came from Dirreen quarry in West Limerick and originally formed part of a bride's dowry.
Bunratty Folk Park. The Cashen Fisherman's House in Bunratty Folk Park. This is replica of a salmon fisherman's house from the Cashen River in North Kerry. It is of a small two-roomed dwelling of a type now almost vansihed.
Bunratty Folk Park. Internal view of the Cashen Fisherman's House in Bunratty Folk Park. The chimney is a three-sided hood of wooden boards attached to the hearth wall which forms the fourth side of the chimney. the hood is topped by a small wooden external chimney. The floor is of rammed clay, as was usual in the smaller houses of the countryside.
