Castles of Ireland: Trim Castle

Measuring 30,000 m², Trim Castle is Ireland’s largest Anglo-Norman castle. Begun in 1176 by the powerful Norman, Hugh de Lacy, this stone masterpiece took over 30 years to build. At its core, there is a massive keep protected by moat and ditch, making the castle an impregnable and formidable fortification. The cruciform shape of this great structure is unique amongst Norman castles.

The site was granted to Hugh de Lacy, one of Norman Ireland’s most important members, to prevent another high-ranking member, Richard de Clare (more famously known as Strongbow), from expanding too far northwest. In fact, it was Strongbow who first brought the Normans to Ireland – he formed a scheme with an enterprising Irish Earl who promised large tracts of land as well as his daughter Aoife’s hand, in exchange for a rise to power as King of Leinster.

The 1100s were still troubled times, and most of the people of the island lived beyond the “civilised” Norman rule. The site for Trim Castle was chosen on the border of the ‘Pale’ – past the castle’s estate were the ‘hostile’ lands of the Gaelic Irish clans.

Of course, Trim Castle didn’t stop the Normans and the Gaelic from clashing forces. Not long after the first castle was built, the Gaelic king attacked and burnt it to the ground.

The castle saw extensive renovations in the 13th and 14th centuries, including the Great Hall. The castle stayed in the de Lacy family until 1308 before changing hands through a variety of wealthy owners.

Later, the castle was actually used as a mint, and even saw some parliamentary meetings in the 15th century before it fell in decline in the 1500s – a fate that awaited many Irish medieval fortifications.

Trim Castle was briefly re-fortified and saw some action in the 1640s, and was occupied by the unpopular Oliver Cromwell when he was sent by the English monarchy to teach the pesky Irish a lesson – no freedom and no Catholicism. Cromwell’s forces are responsible for riots, murders and pillaging across Ireland, as well as for burning almost all of the island’s once-great monasteries.

Lying in waste for many several centuries, the castle was eventually sold to the state in the 1990s and it was restored to its former glory in 2000, and is now a protected site and favourite spot to visit by travellers interested in medieval Ireland.

Trim, or Baile Átha Troim, meaning “town at the ford of elderflowers,” is a small, traditional town in eastern Ireland. The founding of the town has traditionally been said to have happened when St Patrick founded a monastery at Trim. Dedicated to a half-forgotten local patron saint, Lomman, later simplified as a disciple of St Patrick, the church flourished for a time until it was burnt repeatedly in the early Middle Ages, then of course captured by the Normans and assimilated into Norman Ireland – when our lovely Trim Castle was first built.

Needing a bit of rebranding, so to speak, a new monastic settlement was erected – St Mary’s Abbey, commanded by Augustinian rule, and home to local relics (including a miracle statue of “Our Lady of Trim”), bringing pilgrims from all over the island and beyond to this little place. Today all that is left of this once-famous place is an imposing tower sporting a single, spectacular gothic window, rising up from the hill beyond the castle.

There is a short but pretty riverside walk that leads from the castle to Newtown Abbey, where the centrepiece is the Church of St Peter and Paul, founded 1206, and the nearby St John’s Priory, a hospital founded around the same time.

Very little is left of the town walls, but in between the castle and the abbey, there are the ruins of the Sheep Gate, an ancient gate that once marked a boundary between town and countryside.

Trim saw unrest and upheaval during the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s, with some of the town’s buildings burned down.

But that’s all in the past. Today, the town of Trim is now a bustling centre, popular with visitors from Ireland and abroad. Its streets are full of cheery shops, cafes and pubs. But even with all of this history and the many ruins on its doorstep, it will always be the castle that is the pride and glory of Trim.