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The Poetry Room

The topmost chamber in Helen's Tower before you reached the roof was a window-lined, wooden room titled the "Poetry Room." The ceiling was a beautifully carved masterpiece and the walls were simple wood with red velvet seats in the windows punctuated only by a few bronze plaques featuring poems about the tower. Tennyson, Browning, Kipling and others wrote about the idyllic retreat and some of their works grace the walls to this day. From Tennyson's poem:
"Helen's Tower, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
Son’s love built me, and I hold
Mother’s love in letter’d gold.
Love is in and out of time,
I am mortal stone and lime…"
With it's tall windows overlooking the misty forest you could easily imagine some Romantic poet seeking inspiration in this room and sitting down at the center table to scribble their ideas. Sadly this post concludes our tour of Helen's Tower--after a few nights within its wall it was time to leave our misty tower and return to reality...

Outfit details:

ASOS dress (old)

Modcloth tights

Seychelles oxfords (old)

*pictures by Thomas

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Labels: castle, helen's tower, ireland, northern ireland, outfits, teen vogue, travel

Straight Forwards

As promised on Monday: further pictures exploring the interior of Helen's Tower. The tower boasted a quite modern kitchen and facilities, so it was only after you walked up the spiral staircase to the third floor and opened the ancient wooden door to this chamber that you felt you had truly stepped into the past. Elaborately painted ceiling, ornate wallpaper, narrow arching windows--check, check, check! This sitting room was where Thomas and I spent most of our time; enjoying a little cider in the evening, sitting in front of the fire as the wind whipped around the tower, even playing the occasional board game--the room managed to convey both the grandeur of a forgotten time and be welcoming and cozy enough that on grey days I never wanted to leave.

Outfit details:

Anthropologie jacket

Alloy dress

Modcloth tights

Seychelles oxfords

*pictures by Thomas

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Labels: alloy, anthropolpogie, castle, helen's tower, ireland, modcloth, northern ireland, outfits, seychelles, teen vogue, travel

Helen's Tower

My expressions in these photographs in no way convey the amount of excitement I had when I first saw Helen's Tower. The other week was my one year anniversary with Thomas and I was mostly exited to be in Northern Ireland to spend time with him and didn't anticipate more than a meal out to commemorate the occasion. He surprised me by announcing we were going away for a couple of day and didn't reveal the destination, even as we drove off towards the seaside I was in the dark. It wasn't until we found our way on a small backroad driving deeper and deeper into some murky woods and finally rounded a corner to see this tower looming above us that our destination--Helen's Tower--was revealed to me. As an American all too easily impressed with the sight of castle ruins the idea of staying in an actual tower for a few nights was quite overwhelmingly (to use my most American term) awesome. The tower was built in the 1800s and the Irish Landmark trust has renovated it (along with other interesting properties) to make the tower suitable for brief visits. I have more pictures to share inside some of the rooms in the tower, but today the focus is on the impressive exterior, the spiral staircase that rose through the center, and our little rooftop area which provided beautiful views on less foggy days. It felt quite surreal to unlock the front door and make ourselves at home--even on our second night sitting by the fire with a game of Scrabble in the evening I found my eyes wandering around the room and wondering how I managed to get there. Definitely an outstanding anniversary surprise that I won't soon get over.