It must, truly, have been formerly a magnificent work of its kind, its shape being triangular, as is that noblest of all Anglo-Norman castles, Chateau Gaillard in Normandy.
Ten flanking towers protected its gateways, which, in their turn, were preceded each by a barbican. The most imposing of its details, which is more or less intact, is the keep, a massive tower sixty-four feet square and sixty feet in height. In this detail it differed greatly from its Norman brothers and sisters: in that at Chateau Gaillard, and others in Normandy, the keep was invariably circular.
Trim’s ecclesiastical history dates back to the foundation of a church here by St. Patrick in the fifth century. Its site is perpetuated to-day by the famous Yellow Tower of the church of St. Mary’s Abbey, the most lofty Anglo-Norman erection in Ireland (125 feet). Its outlines and stages were reduced nearly to ruin by Cromwell’s warriors, but enough remains to-day to suggest that its former functions of watch-tower and refuge must have been most efficient.
“Literary pilgrims” will be more interested perhaps in visiting the tiny parish of Laracar, so indelibly associated with the lives of Swift and his “Stella.” It lies but two short miles south of Trim, and is still one of those delightful, unspoiled, old-time villages which one occasionally comes across. Swift was the incumbent of this parish in 1699, and “Stella,” chaperoned by Mrs. Dingley, was quartered here in lodgings. The ladies moved into the glebe-house, so literary gossip says, when Swift was on his travels, and the “Journal to Stella” was addressed there. Swift’s house, now but a fragment of a ruin, remains, as also the church in which “dearly beloved Roger” was clerk.
Down the Boyne from Trim one comes first to Bective Abbey, which, according to a local authority, differs from every other monastic establishment in the kingdom, in that it was a monastic castle or fortress. It was a Cistercian foundation of the twelfth century, first endowed by O’Melaghlin, a prince of Meath. It is a fine ruin to-day, and, although the parts of its original outlines are somewhat lost, the pointed fenestration is remarkable and unusually well preserved. Hugh de Lacy, after his assassination at Durrow Castle, was brought here for burial, but his head was interred in the tomb of Rosa de Monmouth in the Abbey of St. Thomas at Dublin.
Here one is in the immediate vicinity of Tara and its famous hill, the site of Ireland’s most celebrated and splendid kingly residence.
Between Tara and Kells is Navan, which, of itself, is an ordinary “market town,” with nothing to commend it to the lover of beauty and history but its immediate vicinity to the junction of the rivers Blackwater and Boyne. This particular spot, just below Navan, is one of exceptional charm, though, as has been truly said, “the people of Navan have turned their backs upon it,” and from scarce a spot in the town itself can a glimpse of either stream be had.
Navan has a past decidedly more interesting than its present. Its ancient patronymic was Nuachongbhail, and it was one of the earliest fortified places in the county of Meath. Hugh de Lacy walled it around; but remains of this work have now almost disappeared, though there are still some very tangible evidences of the “earliest style of fortifications known in Erin” in the Great Moat of Navan.
The Round Tower of Donaghmore, the most perfect of its kind in Ireland, and the ruins of Donaghmore church, are near by. Professor Flinders Petrie ascribes the date of the tower to the tenth century. It is one hundred feet in height, and its base circumference is sixty-six and a half feet. He further describes the remarkable doorway as having “a figure of Our Saviour, crucified, sculptured in relief on its keystone and the stone immediately above