Trim Castle

This past weekend Liz, Ian and I went to Trim Castle in Trim, Ireland for a day trip. The trip started off most excellently - as the bus hoved into view, Ian and I began freaking out and Liz began shushing us and looking around to see how many people had noticed us/on what level we were embarrassing her. We were going to ride on a double-decker bus. And we were the first ones in line. Do you know what that means? WE WERE GOING TO GET FRONT ROW SEATS ON THE TOP OF THE BUS!! And that is just what we did, just barely stopping ourselves from running to the bus and up the stairs like children.

.

So high up!

The bus ride was just as good as we hoped it would be. We struggled to comport ourselves with dignity while two young children calmly conversed with their parents a few rows behind us. We had a panoramic view of everything we passed, and when Trim Castle came within sight, we were the first to know about it. We wriggled in our seats with excitement, looking around at each other in anticipation as the castle approached...

And then sailed past. The excitement faded from our faces as we twisted around to see the castle fading in the distance. It soon became abundantly clear that the bus didn't automatically stop at every bus stop, as we had thought. Ian had a quick word with the driver, and we discovered that we should have gone downstairs and told the driver when we wanted to get off. Well then. After going one town over to the end of the line, the bus turned around and started heading back towards Trim. This time we sat on the first floor, quietly and without looking at each other overly much.

We thanked our driver as he dropped us at the correct location, and the sight of the majestic castle in front of us washed away our lingering embarrassment.

Mostly. We quickly clambered up a hill next to the castle to get a good view of the whole thing, and could see remnants of a huge stone wall surrounding the main structure, while a lazy section of the river Boyne floated on by.

We made our way down to the main building, pausing for a moment to admire the gold medal the town won in 2009 from the Meath County Council Anti Litter League, and shake our heads in disgust at the bronze from 2010. 

Slackin'! :(

Oh, and we also had to perform the important task of putting ourselves in the stocks and taking pictures of it like typical idiots I mean tourists. 

Liz wasn't quite tall enough. :)

 We paid a few euro to get access to the grounds and a spot in the 12:15 tour, and proceeded to explore the area. There were all sorts of nooks and crannies to see and we set to it with a will. There were arrow slits in the thick outer wall and we, being the mature adults that we are, most certainly did *not* leap up onto the wall and pretend to rain death and destruction down on an approaching army of bloodthirsty enemies. Only weirdos would have done that.

Sweet arrow slit

Another

 After exploring the grounds, we gathered with a small crowd around the stairs leading to the single castle entrance to begin the tour. On the tour we learned a lot about castle defense. The castle was designed to be defended by a handful of men against thousands. There was one door on the second level of the building, so a large frontal attack could not be successful. A false gate on the grounds provided a few knights with the opportunity to draw an army to that point and then slaughter them without them being able to get into the grounds. The area in front of this gate was actually known as "the killing field".

False Gate

But the thing that I found to be the most fascinating about castle defense was the staircases.

Inside the castle there were two circular stone staircases leading to the upper floors so, theoretically, two men could defend the entire castle from attackers. The stairs were narrow to only allow one person on them at a time, and curved up and to the right to put a right-handed attacker at a disadvantage. A right-handed defender would be able to use the center of the staircase for protection and easily swing a sword around at an attacker, while the attacker would have to expose his whole body in order to strike. The doorway to the stairway was low, so any intruder would have to bend down to enter, thus exposing his head and neck. If an attacker did manage to make it through the doorway, the stairs themselves contained 'trick' stairs - steps placed at random intervals that were slightly higher or lower than the others around them to trip up anyone not intimately familiar with the castle. I found all of this completely fascinating and it was definitely my favorite part of the tour.

Another thing I learned was about people, and how little we have changed over the centuries. On the walls of the castle there were many carvings where people had scratched their names into the rock as reminders to everyone who came after that they had been there. One carving from the 1600's was of two names with a heart in between. It was comforting and connecting to see this common human drive throughout the ages to carve our names in the places we've been, this fear of being forgotten.

K. Beel was here 1743 bitches.

Our tour guide was great and really knowledgeable, and told us all about how there was a man whose whole job was to occasionally stir the feces that all dropped from people's toilets into one cellar part of the castle. This stirring would release the gases and people would hang their clothes by the vents leading from this pit, as the gases helped to kill lice and other bugs. The feces would also be smeared on the outside of the castle and put in a  bowl by the front door for guests to inspect. This was because the darker the feces was, the richer the diet of the human from whence it came, so this was a sign of power and wealth to neighbors and potential enemies. Gross.

The tour was great but it was quite cold out, so when it was over we went across the street to this cute little cafe that our professor, Kelli, had suggested to us. It was just what the doctor ordered. The woman running the place made me fabulous hot chocolate even though it wasn't on the menu and delicious soup that warmed me all the way through. She was very motherly, kind, and familiar, making me miss my own mother a lot but also making me feel comforted and at home for the first time since coming here.

Ian took awkward pictures of us in the cafe

And was mysteriously aloof when it came time for his own.

After lunch we walked around the town a bit and decided to walk a bit down a path by the river Boyne. Along the path were hunks of wood with beautiful poetic words written on the sides, which we stopped to read/climb on/hug voraciously.

"A giant mushroom....

Maybe it's friendly!"

We found some more ruins and a haunting, half-wild graveyard that we explored for a while. Some of the gravestones were very moving and had a long list of names, often of children, spaced apart by many "also"'s. After exploring the area thoroughly, thinking about life for a while, and failing to find a gravestone with my date of birth on it (I've always found interesting the idea that at the very moment my family was rejoicing at new life, someone else's family somewhere was mourning the loss of someone dear. I know that's weird, but it makes me feel connected to others in an odd way), we decided to head back and catch the next bus to Dublin before it got dark. There were no mishaps on the way back, and we returned to our apartments, tired but happy. :)

Ruins