Powerscourt Estate and Gardens

If you saw my latest outfit post you'll know that we visited Powercourt Estate and Gardens back in June. It was a beautiful day so I brought my camera with me to document our trip. I had wanted to visit Powerscourt for years but I'd never gotten around to it and it's under an hour away from Dublin so I had no excuse. I had seen countless photos of the estate and the gardens over the years but seeing it all in person blew me away.

Powerscourt estate was originally commissioned to be built on the site of a medieval castle in 1741 by the 1st Viscount of Powerscourt. Over the years an extra storey was added and it was was majorly refurbished in the late 19th century. In 1961 the Slazenger family bought it from the 9th Viscount Powerscourt. They spent the next 13 years restoring the house with the purpose of opening it as a tourist attraction but sadly in 1974 a fire broke out in the house leaving it in ruins for over 20 years. Thankfully the house has since been completely restored and in 1997 it was finally opened to the public.

Over the years Powerscourt has served as the location for many films and television productions beginning with Laurence Olivier's Henry V in 1944. Before the fire in 1974 it was the location for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and since then The Count of Monte Cristo, King Arthur, Ella Enchanted and Tudors have all been partly filmed there. 

These photographs don't do it justice but hopefully you can get some idea of how beautiful the place is, I'd love to go back in Winter to see it with all of the bare trees.

Visiting places like this makes me feel a little guilty that it's taken me so long to make a trip there but also excited that I live in a country with such a rich history and culture. I hope I continue with my exploration of Ireland, next on my list is the Giant's Causeway.

Have any of you been to Powerscourt or is there any famous places or tourist attractions in Ireland that you haven't yet visited and would like to?

Emma x

You're The Tall Kingdom I Surround

I was off work a few weeks ago and by some miracle the weather was glorious for the whole week. We took full advantage and went on a few day trips, one of which was to Powerscourt Estate in County Wicklow. I've wanted to visit Powerscourt for years after seeing how beautiful it looked in photographs and it didn't disappoint. Granted, it probably helped that it was one of the most stunning days we've had in Ireland in the past few years. It really felt like we were on holiday in a foreign country rather than an hour outside Dublin. 

I took lots of photos of the house and it's grounds and gardens which I plan on sharing in a separate post, but for now here are some photos of the outfit I wore on our day out. I wasn't actually planning on taking outfit photos but I couldn't resist making use of such a breathtaking backdrop. 

Kimono- New Look (similar here, here, here and here)
Top- New Look
Jeans- Dorothy Perkins
Sandals- Birkenstock Rio
Earrings- H&M (similar here, here, here and here)
Bag- Stella and Dot Waverley Petite
Bracelet- Stella and Dot Becker Cuff
Sunglasses- ASOS
Lipstick- MAC Ruby Woo
Nails- Max Factor Gel Shine Lacquer in Vivid Vermillion

I don't usually like to wear my hair up as it makes me feel a little exposed, however in the hot weather it becomes a necessity. I'm not great at experimenting with my hair but if I absolutely have to wear it up I try to do something a bit more interesting than a ponytail. These milkmaid braids are about as much as I can manage with my limited skills. It's fast and easy to do and keeps my long hair out of my face in the heat so it's been my go-to style for wearing my hair up in the Summer.

This kimono is actually a beach cover up I got in New Look last year. I like that I can throw it on over a plain outfit in the Summer and it gives me a little bit of extra protection from the sun but it's really lightweight so I don't get too warm. The earrings are from H&M last year and I think that's where my love of tassel earrings began. I used to be crazy about big earrings years ago. I don't wear them all that much any more but I think having my hair up lends itself to big earrings and these really are statement ones.

I've wanted to feature my Birkenstock sandals on the blog since I got them last year. I suffer with Heel Spurs and I wear insoles in my shoes every day to give me proper arch support otherwise I'm crippled with pain. I was really struggling every Summer to find sandals that had inbuilt arch support and weren't completely hideous. This is where the Birkenstocks come in. I was recommended them by my boyfriend's dad who has problems with his feet. So when I saw some classic black Birkenstock Arizona sandals in TK Maxx at a reduced price I bought them to try out. I was delighted with how comfortable they were on my banjaxed feet. Soon after that I bought these Rio ones and they're just as comfortable. It's so nice being able to wear sandals and not worry about my feet being in pain. The silver and copper ones are next on my list.

This trip to Powerscourt got me thinking about how we're generally quite bad at being tourists in our own cities and countries even though there is so much to see and do in every corner of the world. I was wondering if you have any places you haven't been in your town/city/country that you have wanted to visit for years but haven't yet?

Emma x

Loftus Hall

I read about the legend of Loftus Hall years ago in a book that we had at home about Ireland. I was probably too young to be reading something like that at the time but it always stuck with me and I have wanted to visit it ever since. As recently as a year and a half ago I started reading up about it again and found out that it had been in a state of disrepair for years and was on the market. I had seen some photos that people had taken of the exterior all boarded up and this further fuelled my desire to see it in person and to see what was hidden away inside. 

I had forgotten all about it until I was reading a leaflet about tourist attractions in Wexford when we arrived at our hotel and I saw Loftus Hall was one of them. It had been bought and opened for tours last October and I was determined for us to visit it while we were down there. Luckily it's just down the road from Hook Lighthouse so we visited it on our way home on the same day. 

Our tour guide told us all lots of stories about the house that would make your skin crawl, especially while standing in those old dark rooms. The most well known story and the one I read about years ago, is that of the Tottenham family (Charles, his wife and his daughter Anne) who were staying in the house back in the 1700s. The story goes that one night a ship arrived at Hook Head and a man who was on the ship called to Loftus Hall and was invited to stay. After being there for a few days he struck up a rapport with Anne Tottenham and one evening the family sat down to play a game of cards. The man dealt a hand, but Anne was missing a card. She bent down to get it from beneath the table and noticed the man had a cloven hoof in place of a foot. She let out a scream which alerted the man to what she had seen and with that he disappeared through the ceiling in a cloud of smoke. Not long after the incident Anne was confined to her room after a breakdown and apparently she spent the rest of her short life staring out the window at the sea waiting for the stranger to return.

There's obviously a lot of speculation about the events that occurred and there are some theories that the young woman had some form of mental illness and the family were embarrassed and tried to explain it away with this story about the stranger.

I personally do believe in spirits, although I'm not completely convinced of this story. However some of the other ones we heard on the tour would really make you believe that something haunts the house. Either that or just a lot of very strange coincidences. Even if you didn't believe in all that, I challenge anyone to go through that house and not feel a tiny bit creeped out.

After the tour we walked down to the small beach beside the house. It happened to be a gorgeous afternoon and it made me feel a lot better after being freaked out by the house. If you get the chance, it's definitely worth seeing the inside of the house, the detail in the decor is unbelievable. The wooden staircase alone is worth seeing, it is one of only three made, the other two being in the Vatican city and on the Titanic.

If you want to see the interior, there are some really great photographs on flickr that someone took in 2008 where you can see the kind of state the place was in before it was finally sold. I loved looking through these photos as we only got to see certain rooms of the house because it's in such bad condition and is unsafe for visitors.

Would you be interested in visiting Ireland's most haunted house?

Emma x