One in an occasional series of places I visit for the first time, even though they’re no distance from my house.
Dún na Sí Amenity & Heritage Park is situated just outside Moate, Co. Westmeath. It’s a park of two halves. One part is free for anyone to visit and is chock-full of sculptures, paths and fun things that make small children run around very fast. The other is what could loosely be described as a miniature Bunratty Folk village crossed with a pet farm. The day I visited, the tour guide was off so there was a reduced entry charge into the heritage park. The pleasant lady at the front desk furnished me with a leaflet containing a map so off I went.
The heritage park has replicas of the sorts of houses our ancestors would have lived in over the centuries. They were modest dwellings but none were as basic as the one-roomed mud hut. It’s sobering to think that entire families lived in such structures once upon a time. Because they were built from mud (as indeed the one here appears to be), very few of them have survived to the present day.
The rural museum has an extensive collection of farm machinery, all brightly painted and in far better condition than anything I’ve ever seen on a farm! Some of the machines don’t look like they’d pass modern day health & safety regulations, what with the many spikes and sharp edges they had.
I was also delighted to see a penny farthing bicycle leaning against a wall. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in real life before. It’s easy to see why this particular style of bike went out of fashion and never came back again.
The main sculpture in the park is Lugh’s Spear. Lugh was an Irish god who seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Lambert in Highlander. Set into a hill, it looks like Lugh and his spear are about to emerge at any moment. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong part of the sky when I was taking photos so they didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped. It’s still pretty cool though.
Some parts of the exhibition weren’t open. Perhaps this was because the tour guide wasn’t there. So I didn’t get to see the Scéal or Science parts
On the other side of the car park was the free section of the park. Unlike the heritage park which was fairly quiet, it was filled with families enjoying the spring sunshine. There are all sorts of interesting sculptures dotted around the place. It’s an ongoing project and the pieces are the brainchildren of secondary school students. On the edge of the park is something all geography students will have learned about – a Turlough. These are a type of lake which fill with water during the winter, then disappear again (sometimes in a matter of hours) when the weather improves. The Turlough was still there but I intend to check up on it over the coming months to see has someone pulled the plug on it yet 😉
All in all, I was very impressed with Dún na Sí and would recommend it to anyone. Having said that, I thought the entry fee into the heritage park was on the steep side and I thought the reduced €5 was enough to be paying for what it was.
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