Day 9: July 8 - Journal Entry
Today we are headed to Trim Castle and Maynooth Castle.
Trim Castle
It is about a 50 minute drive. Trim Castle was used in the film Braveheart, with Mel Gibson. It was a good tour. Our tour guide sounded more English than Irish. But he was fun and informative. The tour group was kind of big, so it was harder to ask questions. We had to walk up a large set of metal stairs to get in the castle. The original stairs would have been made of wood so they have long since deteriorated. The guide told us of the defence system that the castle would have had, and the stages in which they believe the castle was built. We got to see scale models of the stages, and walk through the different levels of the castle. The roof had great views of the surrounding grounds and countryside. There was a large wall around the keep and a river running past. The whole thing was quite charming, and you could tell that with a fair bit of staging, this would make a great movie set. After we finished the castle tour we walked across the street to a little cafe and had some lunch. Then we realized there was another castle not far from us on the way home, why not make a short detour.
Maynooth Castle
Maynooth Castle was just about 10 minutes away, and while the narrow roads are never fun, it wasn’t too bad of a drive. The castle was far smaller than Trim, and lacked the large estate that Trim had. But it was interesting to read the history of the keep. All of the castles, ones with tours and hosts, have a fair amount of story behind them. It is strange to think of an era where people felt they had to build strongholds and defensive walls. Maynooth was a self guided location, but they had a history display in the ground level floor, they put in modern metal stairs to get to the second floor, that was missing its roof, but even the ruins of an old castle tell fascinating stories and inspire the imagination to run wild.
We got back to our vrbo in time for Jonathan to work, and Molly got to meet some kids in the next door rental. They played with Poppy and jumped on the trampoline. It is nice that she gets to interact with other kids after spending the day with just her parents and tour guides. I hope she is having a good time on this trip, she seems bored at random intervals.