Birr Castle

Today took a nice long drive down to Birr Castle Co. Offaly, home to the (at one stage) largest telescope in the world. Seeing as the powers that be have decided to change/fix the laws so that drivers such as myself on their second learner license can't drive by themselves anymore (yes yes I still don't have my feckin license), I thought it would be my last chance to use the car for a good while. And I thought I did pretty well in the tiny little 1.0 litre, avoiding all the motorways, only getting lost 3 or 4 times, though we had to pull over at one stage because some good ol' Irish torrential rain (couldn't see out the windscreen) but got there in one piece. The telescope, a huge wooden tube hanging between two high walls, was lying in the middle of large castle grounds. There was a museum listing all the achievements of astronomers from previous centuries and pictures of galaxies but far and away the most exciting part of the museum was the cool little scale model of the telescope which you raised and lowered using a few buttons. Designed to bring out the 10 year old in everyone.