Tuesday May 3rd: Trim Castle and Kells, Ireland
Bob: After breakfast we continued exploring the area by driving over to see Trim Castle, a fairly well-preserved and quite large castle in the town of Trim built by Hugh De Lacey in the late 1100s. Trim Castle was quite extensive, much more the prototypical "castle" in my mind than the square fighting forts typically found in the Irish countryside that we had seen on our previous visit to Ireland on Wanderung 9 and along the West coast. We walked along the interior and exterior of the great curtain wall, which had been added in the 13th Century I believe. It was later enlarged and strengthened to become the primary defensive perimeter of the castle in the succeeding centuries. The "D" shaped defensive towers spaced along the length of the curtain wall strengthened it and gave positions to fire sideways at attackers trying to scale it. |
Monika: Another day, another few historical sites. We started with the 12th century castle in Trim. It was built in 1181 by a Norman Hugh de Lacy. |
Bob: However, for practicality an entrance had been inserted into the wall. Naturally, it was well defended by guard towers as otherwise it would have been a weak point in the defenses. The interior keep or bailey, the first section of the castle to be built, was a large multi-storied stone tower. But instead of a simple square shape with only 1 or 2 rooms on each level, as in the small Irish forts, this keep was huge with a kind of cruciform shape, and each floor was large enough to have several rooms. We wanted to take the tour of the keep, but a group of Irish school children was scheduled in ahead of us and it was quite cold, so we decided not to wait over an hour for the next one. |
Monika: The main keep was still mostly intact and had been used for the movie Braveheart (which we, of course, had not seen). The next tour of the castle for us would have been in an hour, since a group of school children was having the very next tour. So we decided to skip the tour and just look and photograph the different parts of the castle. It was a quite extensive keep and we enjoyed walking around looking at the different outbuildings. |
Bob: The Boyne River and a short canal on the other side of the keep had been used both to ferry building materials to the site and incorporated as the "moat" part of the defensive wall along that side. |
Monika: It was rather windy but sunny. But that did make it somewhat cold. Therefore, Lois decided to go back to the car, while Bob and I walked around the outside of the keep. One side of the keep bordered the rive Boyne, and we walked along its bank. |
Bob: We crossed over the river and walked up the hill on the opposite to the "Yellow Tower", the front wall of a bell tower from a big abbey that had once stood opposite Trim Castle. The rest of the abbey is long gone, but that one wall remains, jutting precariously up into the sky and looking like it will fall over any second! |
Monika: On the other side of the river was a lonely tower. This was the so-called yellow tower that was the only thing left of an abbey that had been on this side. With the bright sunlight on it, it did almost look yellow. |
Bob: We curled back through town to the car, stopping to mail some cards and buy some groceries along the way, and then drove North to Kells. |
Monika: Lois had rejoined us to look at the tower, and we decided to take a turn through the little town of Trim. It was a nice looking town with one major street. At the top was a post office and Bob had several postcards he wanted to mail. We also found a bank where Lois and I used the ATM to get some much needed cash. |
Bob: Finding a parking spot in Kells, we walked uphill toward a high, narrow, round tower adjacent to an old graveyard and church. The tower, as it turned out, had been a monk's refuge in case of invasion and was a remnant from the original church which had kept the Book of Kells. |
Monika: By now we were ready to go on. Our next stop was the town of Kells, where the Book of Kells had been written in the monastery. We found the town and a parking space and now were ready for some lunch. But every place we looked at seemed to be closed. Where Trim had made a lively well populated impression, this town looked dead. |
Bob: Although the church was much newer, the graveyard had some very old and very large carved grave markers. Several were in the form of the Celtic cross with a circle surrounding the cross, very weathered but recognizable. Others were just highly engraved slabs but the scenes they depicted had sets of people apparently doing something, and that intrigued me. What were they doing and why put such scenes on gravestones? Curling back downhill we found a cafe where we stopped off for a belated lunch before driving on to our last stop of the day, Mellifont Abbey. |
Monika: We did decide to go ahead look at the leftover tower from the monastery and the old cemetery with several very impressive old Celtic crosses. On the way back, we found probably the only open coffee shop in the town and had lunch. |
Bob: Mellifont Abbey is important because it was the first Cistercian Abbey to be established in Ireland, but the site mostly consists of a set of low ruins that outlines the walls and columns of the original church. Aside from the partial shell of the gatehouse, the only pieces still standing were the ruins of the lavado, a ceremonial fountain for washing of the hands for ritual purification, and the Chapter House. Only part of two walls of the lavado had survived the centuries, but they featured quite graceful and delicate columns and archways. Those walls were enough for me to be able to imagine the lavado as a complete hexagonal or octagonal structure with the fountain in the center and a stream of monks dipping their hands before wending their way to one of their required offices. |
Monika: After that, we decided, however, to move on. Our last destination for the day were the ruins of Mellifont Abbey, the very first Cistercian Abbey in Ireland. As such it was a historical significant ruin, however, as ruins go, it was not very impressive. The only two really outstanding places were a Lavabo, a place were the monks would wash their hands before a meal, and the inside of the old chapter house. The Lavabo was an open round building, where a fountain with running water had been in the middle. |
Bob: The Chapter House was covered by a quite ugly shell of painted plywood, and at first I thought we should dismiss it. But one of the docents unlocked it just as we were passing by so we entered to satisfy our curiosity. The Chapter House really had beautiful Gothic windows and tiled floors with some of the original glazing not only intact, but so well preserved as to make the inscriptions quite legible ("Ave Maria"). In its heyday, the entire church would have looked equally beautiful, I'm sure, but it was sacrificed in the dissolution of the monasteries as were so many of the other churches and abbeys of that time. |
Monika: The outside of the old chapter house had been shrouded with painted plywood to prevent deterioration due to weathering, I suppose. While that covering may well have been effective it certainly made for ugly photography. But a nice lady opened the inside, and that was quite interesting. |
Bob: By now it was getting late and we were all tired, so we pointed the car back at our B&B, had a light dinner, and turned in for the evening. |
Monika: But that was about all the sightseeing we wanted to do and we were glad to get back to the B&B for a rest. But after having eaten something it was still light and we had not walked all that much today so I suggested we walk over to the Athlumney Castle that beckoned from our window. It was easy to find, down one road and up the next. Across from it was an old cemetery with the ruins of a church. This was the place of a rather interesting custom. When a coffin was brought in it was put on a particular slab of stone while the prayers were being said, and then it was taken to the correct spot and lowered into the ground. Across the road was the castle. Unfortunately the gate to it was locked, so we only could get a few pictures from the back. But it satisfied my urge for seeing the whole thing. We looped back to the B&B and finished the evening looking at the internet, writing, and reading (we are a simple folk...). |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Map of Drive in Ireland | Epilog |
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