Cahir Castle and Extinct Giant Bog Deer

I went on a day trip with the students and saw 2 more castles.   One was the least ruined of the big castles I've seen.  It seemed like all the rooms had a roof.  It was owned by a family that owned a lot of castles, the Butler family.  It is right on top of a river, like a lot of the other castles.

I'm standing on the other side of the river in this pic.  The wall is right on the other shore of the river.

In a lot of the castle, they have big holes above the doors and gates so they could poor tar and boiling water on the intruders or attackers.

Those two big holes above the gate let the people inside the castle dump boiling water on the people trying to get in.

At Cahir Castle, they have some old cannons still by the wall.  There is also a cannonball still stuck in one wall of the castle.

Trying to load my head into the cannon.

One of the coolest things inside the castle was the skull of a GIANT deer.  The deer was called the Irish Elk and was the largest deer that ever lived. It is extinct now.  The deer weighed up to 1,500 pounds and their antlers alone weighed 100 pounds.  A lot of the skeletons of the giant deer have been found in Ireland because they are preserved in the bogs.

Because this was found in the bogs it is shiny and black like bog wood.