Home   Curriculum   Parke’s Castle Tour

Parke’s Castle Tour

The review of Parkes castle by Tadhg and Zack


Before we went to Parks castle we watched a few a few videos and did a bit of studying about the castle with teacher. When we arrived our tour guide brought us into the courtyard where we got to go on the foundations of the tower that Robert Parke knocked down in the 16th century.


Now we will tell you about Brian O Rourke. Brian O Rourke built Parke’s Castle in the 15th century.He had a wife and was very rich. He had a massive tower in the middle of the courtyard that later got knocked down by Robert Parke in the 15th century.

In the 15th century the Spanish Armada was aiming to take over England. Brian O Rourke helped the Spanish Armada but unfortunately the English guards found out that O’Rourke helped their enemy and O Rourke got brought to London and was hung drawn and quartered and later on Robert Parke took over the castle.


Once Robert Parke moved in to the castle with his family he had to hire 70 to 90 solders.Robert Parke made a lot of changes he knocked down the big tower in the middle of the courtyard to make part of the wall into a house with the stone. Unfortunately two of his children were on a boat when a storm came and drowned both of them. Robert Park also had a child who married Frances Gore that had 12 children which one of them is the person who built Lissadell House where we will go to next year.


In the olden days they used to wear  lots of make up to protect dust from getting on them. The makeup had lead in it that slowly but surely poisoned them. It also made them bald and that is one of the reasons they wore wigs back then.


Musket holes were designed to be bigger on the inside for the soldiers to shoot easier out of and the enemy couldn’t shoot as easily in.


Underneath the castle was a sally port so they could escape but also get supplies into the castle. It was mainly used for getting supplies into Parke’s Castle.


The pigeon tower was very handy to the castle and was used to send messages and they would also eat the pigeons if they were trapped in the tower. Sometimes they got an egg to eat as a treat. The pigeons ‘poo’ was also used to make gunpowder! Getting killed is bad enough but getting killed by pigeon powered poo would be a whole lot worse!


We really enjoyed our tour and learned so much!

IMG_7636 IMG_7587 IMG_7595 IMG_7600 IMG_7605 IMG_7613 IMG_7617 IMG_7623 IMG_7629 IMG_7630 IMG_7631 IMG_7632 IMG_7633 IMG_7634 IMG_7635


Comments are closed.