Day Fifteen and Sixteen – Trim Castle and Dublin

Wow. Our last day in Ireland. Hard to believe that over two weeks have flown by already. Over some feeble objections from the womenfolk, Aaron lobbied for one more castle stop. Trim Castle in the

Trim Castle Central Tower

town of (you guessed it) Trim is one of the largest
Anglo Norman castles that was founded around 1100 and continued to be enlarged and adding more sophisticated anti-siege technology through the 1300’s. We took a guided tour,which is really the only way to see these places. The guide was a sharp contrast to the John Connely style. He had a memorized spiel and sometimes struggled to remember names or dates. The more striking thing was his biting comments about the Anglo Normans that built the castle. It was a sharp reminder that Ireland only pried themselves free from English rule in 1922 and 800 years or so of grievances won’t go away any time soon.

Our last night in Ireland was at the competent Bewley hotel at the Dublin Airport . After wading through the VAT tax refunds (I will add one more post on this topic for the one or two readers who might be interested, it does apply to all European union countries)