Adare Heritage Centre (Ireland)

It was a pleasure to visit Adare Heritage Centre in Ireland’s prettiest village of Adare, County Limerick, not once but twice. The Heritage Centre is very conveniently located as part of a shopping / dining / parking complex on the main street of town. As the website says:

Why not step back in time and take a journey through the Historical Exhibition, a reconstruction of Adare’s unique past from the arrival of the Normans to the ancient Abbeys of the Middle Ages. Trace the significance of the Earls of Dunraven in shaping Ireland’s most picturesque village. The story is told through realistic imagery and storyboards.

It was that “Earls of Dunraven” part that sparked my interest.

The mountainous and forested part of Colorado around the town of Estes Park is one of my favourite places in the world, which is easy to understand. It’s picture postcard-beautiful, and I’m obviously not alone in thinking so. There is a Dunraven Inn (restaurant), just outside of town, near where I used to work during the summers in university. And there’s a Dunraven Cottage nearby as well. So I’d heard of the Earls of Dunraven and knew there was some connection to Estes Park.

Well, what a surprise it was to see a picture of Dunraven Cottage in the Adare Heritage Centre, and learn that it had in fact been built by the fourth Earl of Dunraven, an Irish aristocrat from Adare!

Picture of Dunraven Cottage, Estes Park, Colorado, in the Adare Heritage Centre.

The Rocky Mountain National Park website tells the story of Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, the fourth Earl of Dunraven (1841-1926), who succeeded to the title in 1871, and how he first came to Estes Park in 1872. The Earl built the pictured cottage in the late 1870s for himself and to entertain guests.

I gather that the Earl of Dunraven’s initial main interest in the “Wild West” was hunting (elk in particular), but there’s a LOT more history than I imagined about the Earl’s relationship to the area. See Earl Dunraven and the Estes Park Land Grab by Kathy Weiser-Alexander, who refers to the Earl as “much hated by many of the area settlers as he made plans to own all of beautiful Estes Park.”

Dunraven Cottage has recently been restored, and was on the market in April 2019 for $849,900 USD!

It was serendipitous to have the occasion to learn more about a beloved place in Colorado while in Ireland, and visit Lord Dunraven’s home town of Adare.

Gratuitous photo of Rocky Mountain National Park outside Estes Park, Colorado, in 2017: Flattop Mountain, Hallett Peak, and Otis Peak, from Moraine Park.

Adare Heritage Centre is museum no. 76 in my #100museums challenge (see 100 Museums Challenge).