Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland. Precariously perched atop basalt cliffs some 100 feet above the wild Atlantic. She sits soft but resilient, the wildness of her surroundings juxtaposed against the strategy of her placement.
To modern-day sightseers she is enigmatic and romantic. But historically, she was built with a pragmatic purpose: identify ships that may approach in the distance, maintain the natural advantage. Protect. Defend.
Parts of her have been eroded away by the passage of time. Entire walls have collapsed under tumultuous weather conditions only to be swallowed by the sea. She is ragged and beautiful, stunning and broken. Pictures will never do her justice.
Castles in ruins have always called to me. Sure they’re beautiful, but more than that, they make me feel. A heaviness mostly, and yet, one that I somehow embrace. Inside their walls I hear ancient tongues and echoes of warrior poets. Battles fought and won, lost and mourned for. I see the ghosts of men who hung in the gallows for crimes we wouldn’t blink an eye at today.
I feel the rushed palpitations of star-crossed lovers absconding from oppressively sealed fates in the dead of night. They never make it. They get caught in a storm and the boat overturns, their limbs bashed against the craggy rocks until the ocean engulfs them. An escape ungranted. A love uncharted. That’ll teach them for trying to be happy.
Happy endings are rare in places like these. We - and all the historians of our time - know this. But we're still intrigued just the same.
I suppose I like things that can fall to ruins but still hold on. Fragile but defiant. Tenacious reminders of how nothing can ever really be destroyed, even through force and time.
And there she remains. No longer impenetrable. Fortifications crumbling, left wild and unguarded. But I prefer her this way. She has so many stories to tell. Give me the grit and tragedy. Give me the overgrown foliage and the graves of the dead enshrined underneath. Give me bloody battles and warrior poets. Give me stories of risks taken for love — even when the ending doesn’t serve up a happily ever after.
Give me the ruined castle.
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