#exoploration

[crannog-beag]

Riverville castle.

This is Riverville Castle, a four story tower house in county Galway, Ireland. County Galway seems to have an awful lot of these castles in varying condition, this one happened to catch my eye from the road. If you want a comparison, here is a diagram of a 'typical' tower house.

It is reported to be the residence of the Bourke family from the 16th century. It was marked as a ruin on 1839 Ordnance Survey map. Not much more to be found about it. As can be seen, it has retained most of it's height over the years. It stands between a split in a river, the split possibly being created as a defensive feature. If there was ever an outer wall, it is long gone.

Going through the damaged outer doorway, there is a stairway up to your left, a alcove to your right, and a murder hole above you. The floor inside the is dirt, strewn with the remains of what may well be centuries of bird nests! There are horizontal gun loops in the other three walls. There may have been a wooden floor originally, explaining the step up to the loops. Looking up, you can see where the wood of the first and second floors met the walls. And finally, the stone vault making up the third floor is still intact, although you would need a ladder to reach it today, as you will see!

I don't seem to have pictured it, but the bottom steps are missing. Once on the stairs, you have to be mindful of the amount of muck now turning the steps in a slope. The stairs begin to curl into a spiral staircase, but as can be seen these are now missing, whether collapsing with time or being destroyed to stop people reaching higher than the first floor. I'm not sure what to say about the uneven floor in this room, perhaps the some of the floor is missing as I wouldn't expect it to be this uneven.

All in all a nice little castle. Couldn't say why the upper windows seem to be half filled with stones, could be from years of people seeing if they could get a rock in the empty window? Seems a very human thing to do to me. If anyone is curious about the missing stone low down the corners of the exterior and roughness around the gun loops, this sort of damage is normally from cattle or other livestock scratching themselves against the walls, knocking blocks loose with time. A fun little detail is that there is a geocache inside the castle, something I learned that evening while trying to learn more about the ruin. Needless to say I had to go back and try to find it, which I managed!

Finally, for those interested in a more architectural study, I have included the description from the Sites and Monuments Record.

'On flat ground to the N of a stream, commanding a river crossing c. 60m to the SE. Named ‘Riverville Castle (in ruins)’ on the 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map, this rectangular tower house (11m N-S; 9.6m E-W) is reputed to have belonged to 'a Mac Hubert Burke' (Topgr. Files, NMI) and is probably of late-16th or early 17th-century date. It survives to a height of four storeys. It was built on a plinth (H 1.2m) of crude random coursed mortared limestone and the walls are of random coursed dressed limestone and dressed quoinstones; the latter have been robbed out at the SW, NW and NE corners to a height of 3m. A base-batter rises to a height of 5m. All four walls bear ivy growth and the E, W and N walls are almost totally covered with it. The original doorway, placed off-centre in the E wall, has been robbed out as has the external wall-face to its N. The doorway accessed a lobby with an overhead murder-hole. From the lobby, doorways led to the main ground-floor room to the W and to an intramural stairs to the S. In the main room horizontal gun loops are set into deep embrasures in the S, W and N walls, it is possible that they are later insertions into the original slit windows. None of the floors survive but corbel sockets indicate they were wooden. There is a stone vault between the 2nd/3rd floors. Above the 1st floor the stairs spiralled clockwise to the top of the tower but it is entirely broken out so access is not possible to the upper floors. The 1st floor is divided into a main room with the subsidiary chamber housing the murder-hole to its E. A fireplace is visible in the N wall of the main room. Wall recesses are visible on various floor levels. The garderobe exit chute is visible externally at the E end of the N wall. A number of windows have been robbed out. The surviving examples consists of flat and ogee-headed single lights; two of the latter on the 3rd floor in the E wall are opposite two in the W wall. There are cross loops on the NE and SE angles at 2nd-floor level.'

[untouchabyeolman]

tagged by @ohsehunny my current top 5 favourite songs

i want you - sb19

say something - twice

let me in - exo

queen of hearts - twice

uhaw - dilaw

tagging: @soiledtaste @pearloftheorient @heartcravings @pajamas-lipstick @exoploring @delhyun @exo-stentialism @beijingduckling

[multimodalmultisensoryvienna]

Multi-sensory approaches to fieldwork

Engaging multiple senses enabled me to better retain information and further immerse me in the field.

E.g. when further investigating why I felt more comfortable in Seestadt compared to 20. district in Vienna, I realized that I could hear the dropping and flowing of water. I noticed that there is less noise pollution in the form of car traffic. The involvement of all senses, the documentation via video, audio and jottings, and the assignments we had during our field visit allowed for stronger memory retention - I still vividly remember how I was drawn to specific gutter because of the noises and the smell.

Ususally, I mainly focussed on visual exoploration of my surroundings, not paying closer attention to my auditory perception, olfactory exploration or any conscious tactile engagement with my surroundings.

This time, I actively got involved, touching the remaining snow, jumping into puddles, feeling where there was still water left on the surfaces of the district and where it had seeped away already. I also reconstructed where and how it must have flowed away.

Getting involved with all my senses and utilizing them to gain knowledge about my field and guiding questions and impressions definitely led to new understandings, not only enriching my ways of conducting research, but also more enabling me to get insight into a topic I have never payed mind to before.

[soulnates]

baekhyun icons.

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[playboyseho]

Good looking Seho...

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Sehun - Make Up Sex by Somo

[ahreumbaekchen]

[allsaki]

 ✧ sarang

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[andreinaaracena098]

[aphroditeah]

exo park chanyeol

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[weeklyweirdkpop]

Well I guess that's what they meant by #EXOploration . Poor boy was just trying to show the temporary tattoos he had on of his father's artwork and Chanyeol went hunting 😂😂😂 #ChanKai #EXOplorationInSeoul #Exo #Kpop https://www.instagram.com/p/B0HByZoHx-V/?igshid=nm8me7pslfa

[fridaxzhcs]

Beautiful

[lucacrosszeria]

🐯Eomma~ya~

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Emes aku tuh🥰🥰

[baekpreme-blog]

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[ahreumbaekchen]