Medieval Horrors

My mom and I are traveling around Ireland before we fly home to Virginia. We spent some time in Galway, took a bus tour up into Connemara. I've been up to Connemara twice before but enjoyed visiting it again. Yesterday we navigated the bus system down to Tralee. We checked into our fancy room at the Grand Hotel, ate a scrumptious dinner, and slept.

The next morning we wandered about The Green, a beautiful park that was home to some lovely rose bushes and a couple of really old and really large trees. We decided to step into the museum next door. For 5 euro we walked through the history exhibit that covered Ireland from the Mesolithic period up to the 1916 Rising. It was a lot of reading, hard to follow at times, but over all a perfectly satisfactory exhibit. Afterwards came something that was advertised as the "Medieval Experience". Sounded interesting enough.

However, I really should have sensed the horrors of what was to come. I really dislike wax museums and any other exhibit that has too many dressed up mannequins. This semi-fear developed from a visit to Harper's Ferry , West Virginia, when I was younger. We learned about the infamous John Brown raid during the Civil War at the town wax museum. I was disturbed and found myself having a hard time eating my pizza afterwards. The cheese on the pizza reminded me of the wax figures. The history exhibit had a few dressed up in furs and wielding stone axes. A few. It wasn't too bad so I ignored the frayed, messy wigs on their heads and the poorly painted faces. The pamphlet made the "experience" seem like an interesting enough sight to see. We made our way down the stairs to the basement all the while reading the following information:

"Tralee in 1450 is recreated in the Medieval Experience. Here you can stroll through the streets, experiencing the sights, sounds and smells of a bustling medieval community. You can find out what people wore, what they ate and where they lived, and why the Fitzgeralds, the Earls of Desmond, who founded the town, also destroyed it"

By the way, they were dead serious when they mention "smells". I don't know what they used, but the exhibit had the foul, funky stench of cow dung and a neglected porta-potty.




I don't know why they have the family in that fancy, riding cart thing. You have to walk through it, around the mannequins and stuffed animals. I would never want to walk through this at night.



Imagine my surprise to look up and see this lovely dame, manic expression on her plastic face, chucking fake "waste" (I think it was sheet plastic or something) down on my head.




Yum, fake meat.




It was creepy. And dark. The poor lighting added to a sense of claustrophobia as I made my way around the mannequins, sensing that one might move at any given moment. I think the fact that we were alone in the exhibit made it worse. They had motion activated sound rigged up so we were accompanied by the wailing of the doomed baby cow at the "butchers", people screaming at each other in Gaelic, and the overly enthusiastic female voice narrating us through our journey. It was like a bad dream. I'm certain this will haunt my slumbers for days to come.

I can still smell it.