Talk:Bunratty

This is horrible...
...sorry, but my initial reaction to this page was to nominate it for deletion or at the very least to be merged with the Bunratty Castle article. There is absolutely nothing here that establishes any sort of notability (see WP:NOTE)! Virtually all the so-called references are the websites of commercial businesses used as sources on themselves! Of the actual reliable sources WP:RS, two were media reports about a retail business that burned down and was not reopened. Wow! The other RS is the Census - but that only offers proof that the village is not even significant enough to figure there. According to the previous version of the page, the only notable event in the village's history seems to be a motorcycle accident - and even the source for that is a WP:SPS! No need to point out that WP is not a directory or a guidebook (WP:NOTGUIDE). This tourist guide stuff might be appropriate at Wikivoyage...so why not post it there?

Here is the SPS material, maybe someone can find another source for this and restore it:

At 2pm on Sunday the 10th of July two British Army motorcycle despatch riders crossed the bridge from Limerick and, despite some local people trying to warn them of the breach, both plunged into the Raite River. Private Williams split open his head on the stonework and lost consciousness as he fell. The other rider saved himself but Williams was seen by a local publican Mrs Ryan and her daughter, to go under. His body was swept down the river and found by a local farmer two or three weeks later, caught up in bulrushes on the eastern bank two hundred yards north from Bunratty Bridge. The local farmer who found him had also witnessed the fatality. He dragged the body from the river and buried him nearby in marshy ground. During the civil war the Governor Generals secretary in Dublin wrote to Richard Mulcahy seeking help in recovering Williams body. The Free State Army spent several days in 1925 excavating the banks of the Raite river looking for William's remains. Even though they had the assistance of the farmer who discovered and buried the body it was never recovered. They concluded that the remains had sunk too deeply into the marshy ground to be recovered.

Let's give this page another chance by stripping it down and getting rid of all the commercial advertising. If someone can add stuff that establishes notability, fine. Otherwise, I still think this should be deleted/merged to Bunratty Castle.Drow69 (talk) 10:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge
This is to propose merging Bunratty (County Clare Civil Parish) into this article. The civil parish of Bunratty is about two miles square, including the village of Bunratty and some nearby fields and houses. Most sources on population, history, etc. make no distinction between the parish and the village. It is not clear if the castle and folk park are in the village or just in the parish. This being Ireland, a straight answer to this pedantic question may be impossible to obtain. Since there is so much overlap, it will be more convenient to readers if one article covers them both, distinguishing them as needed in the text. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that if you zoom in on the 1842 map there are two hamlets near the castle, Bunratty East and Bunratty West, but no village by that name. Most of the habitations are small houses strung along the roads in the north of the parish, near the R.C. Chapel, which would have been the center of the community. This is presumably because most people were practicing subsistence potato farming. The hamlets would have held workers at the castle. Since then there seems to have been a population shift to larger dwellings near the castle. The village is not recognized by the Irish census, so has no formal boundary. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments (Support, Oppose)? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Hmm...I am not Irish so I am not sure I understand the exact legal distinction between townships and parishes (beyond the latter's ecclesial meaning). I agree that there is no sense in having two or even three articles in cases where a village/townland/parish largely overlap. I did some work on Dromore, County Clare, which is a townland but the content could easily have been added to a page of the parish (except that the name of the wood is also Dromore). Maybe a general decision should be taken to focus on one or the other...my feeling is that today townlands are more commonly referred to (again I defer to any Irish wikipedians out there). Parishes seem to be a bit like Baronies, a somewhat outdated form of labelling an area of land.
 * Hmm...I am not Irish so I am not sure I understand the exact legal distinction between townships and parishes (beyond the latter's ecclesial meaning). I agree that there is no sense in having two or even three articles in cases where a village/townland/parish largely overlap. I did some work on Dromore, County Clare, which is a townland but the content could easily have been added to a page of the parish (except that the name of the wood is also Dromore). Maybe a general decision should be taken to focus on one or the other...my feeling is that today townlands are more commonly referred to (again I defer to any Irish wikipedians out there). Parishes seem to be a bit like Baronies, a somewhat outdated form of labelling an area of land.


 * In the case of Bunratty it could even be questioned whether the parish/village are important enough to merit their own article. Most of the notability clearly comes from the castle...which already has its page.


 * Support - pending a consensus on whether having pages for parishes/townlands/villages is generally to be preferred.Drow69 (talk) 15:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * According to this source Bunratty historic town is in Bunratty East and Bunratty West townlands, both of which are in Bunratty parish. The parish includes a few other small townlands. The merge can cover them all: "Bunratty is a historic town in the Bunratty East and Bunratty West townlands of the Bunratty parish ..." I think there is enough sourced content to justify an article, but only one article. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:31, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support Per consensus at Wp:Ireland. just merge it.♦  Dr. Blofeld  22:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)