The World Awaits: Trim & Tara

Friday I went to Trim Castle and the Hill of Tara, both of which were incredibly beautiful and in the typical Irish fashion, deliciously green. The trip was part of SSP and we had a tour of the castle, up some dangerously steep and slippery spiral stairs. Our tour guide was rather unfriendly - he asked if we had any questions and acted as though I was an idiot when I asked what the strange rounded indent was a few floors above. I can't convey his tone adequately online, but he gave me a quizzical look and responded slowly, "it's a chimney, miss." His bland refrain was that everything was built for defense in case we couldn't rationalize that step from the fact that the construction was a fortress. He repeated this a good sixteen times throughout the tour, sometimes two or three times in the same sentence. He also carried around the giant key that locks the castle like it was some marvelous prize, but it also strangely had his house and car key on it which I felt detracted from this.

There's a bush in the way of the picture, but the sky looks pretty.

11th century Anglo-Norman castle, btw.

Green on the inside, and more than one room!!

Steep stairs

All in all, however, it was a gorgeous castle and while empty, thankfully had more than one room. It was also apparently a filming location for Braveheart. Our guide was very displeased Mel Gibson had gotten some of the facts of the story wrong. And unfortunately, this castle did not prominently feature a helpful diagram of a person using the restroom as did Dalkey. I'm not sure I was paying enough attention though, because I seemed to get the message that the people leaned over a ledge to do their business. But his tour was most mundanely about the changing architecture and various lords of the castle, so my attention kind of faltered throughout.

Diagram from the castle in Dalkey, in case you thought they used the toilet differently 500 years ago.

Also, he got really mad when we took this picture. But what else could this little cut out be used for, but surprise attacks with Emmet's hinged pikes? According to the guide, everything was built for defense.

The Boyne Rive from the top of the castle

The Ireland everyone wants to see.

It was really nice to see the Ireland everyone envisions - the one of ridiculously lush green scenery. That trend definitely continued at the Hill of Tara, ancient seat of the high kings of Ireland. The guide there was so much more friendly and not self-loathing. Anyway, the photos: