Trim Heritage Town | Discover Boyne Valley Meath, Ireland

Trim Heritage Town

  • Directions
  • View location on Google Maps here 

    From M1 Motorway

    At junction 10, take the N51 exit.

    Continue onto R161 & continue onto Trim

    From Navan

    Take the 1st exit onto Railway Street & continue onto R161 & continue onto Trim

    From Drogheda

    At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto N51

    Continue onto R161 & & continue onto Trim

    From Dublin M3

    Continue onto Navan Road/N3, take exit onto R156

    Merge onto M3, At junction 6, take the R125 exit

    Continue to follow R154

    Take exit onto Castle Street

    Turn right & destination will be on the right

     

    Parking: Trim Town Centre has pay and display parking 9.00-18.00 Monday to Saturday with an hourly rate of €1.00.
    Special offer: all-day parking for €3.00 available in Emmet Street Car Park, Trim, 3 minutes walk from Trim Castle Entrance. See Map to Emmet Street Car Park.  

     

  • Trim Visitor Centre, 

    Castle Street,

    Trim

    C15 TXA5

  • Region: Trim ,
  • Trim
  • + 353 (0) 46 943 7227
  • trimvisitorcentre@discoverboynevalley.ie
  • Trim Visitor Centre
  • Facebook

Medieval Trim

Trim has one of the best preserved collections of medieval buildings in Ireland, from town walls to monastic sites, as well as the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland.  Trim is situated on the banks of the River Boyne in an area of fertile plains. The town developed around Trim Castle, straddling the river to the north and west of the castle. In the 13th century the town was enclosed within a circuit of stone walls. Augustinian (1140s, 1202), Franciscan (1260), and Dominican (1263) friaries were established, indicating the growing prosperity of the town. In the later medieval period Trim became an increasingly exposed frontier, standing between the (sometimes) hostile worlds of the Anglo-Normans and the Gaelic Irish. Aside from Trim Castle, which dominates the town, other fragments of the medieval town are still clearly visible.

Sheep Gate

The wall which circled the settlement is visible in part, mainly around Castle St. and Emmet St. west of the castle. The Sheep Gate (above) is the only surviving of several medieval gateways to the town.

Yellow Steeple

The jagged Yellow Steeple was formerly a seven-storied church tower belonging to St Mary's Augustinian Abbey, it gets its name from the colour of the stonework in the evening sun. St Patrick's Church (Church of Ireland) is primarily a 19th century structure, though with medieval remains. The tower on its west face incorporates the arms of Richard, Duke of York, Lord of Trim and Viceroy in Ireland from 1449. Interestingly, Ireland's oldest complete and unaltered bridge (dating from 1393) crosses the Boyne at Trim.

Download your free Trim Heritage Town brochure.

Click here for the Trim Historic Trail map and information

Newtown cathedral

Newtown Trim and the medieval Porchfields

A few kilometres downstream of Trim stand the ruins of Newtown Trim – a large medieval cathedral, two monasteries and a small church. These ruins symbolise the failed attempt in the 1200s by the first English Bishop of Meath, Simon de Rochfort, to establish a rival town to de Lacy's Trim.

Watch the video below which tells the hidden history of Newtown and both the archaeology and ecology of the Porch Fields, a medieval open field system that still survives and is now part of the Trim Castle River Walk that links Trim and Newtown.

Famous inhabitants of Trim

  • During the early 1700s Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, lived at Lacacor, near Trim, where he served as vicar to a small congregation. Swift bought Talbot’s Castle from his good friend Stella in the 1700s. Swift had met Stella in England and after her father died, Swift convinced her to move to Ireland. In his publication, A Journal to Stella, he wrote about a quiet and happy time spent in Trim.   
  • Arthur Wellesey, better known as the 1st Duke of Wellington or ‘the Iron Duke', was educated at Trim and spent much of his childhood at the nearby Dangan Castle, his father's country house (now in ruins). He was also an MP for Trim. He is credited with defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and later served as Prime Minister of the UK (1828-30). Despite popular opinion, he never said the phrase about "Being born in a stable doesn't make one a horse" in regards his 'Irish' identity; this was said about him by Daniel O'Connell.
  • Don Ambrosio O'Higgins (1720 – 1801), the Spanish Viceroy of Peru and Chile, allegedly lived for a while at Agher, near Summerhill, after his family lost their land in Sligo. His son, Bernardo O'Higgins, went on to become the ‘Liberator of Chile'.
  • Ireland's greatest mathematician, Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865), grew up with his uncle James Hamilton in Trim, in one of the former St. Mary's Abbey buildings beside the Yellow Steeple. He was educated in his uncle's school in St. Mary's Abbey and quickly show his potential, whilst also exploring the many archaeological sites of the Boyne Valley. William had a successful scientific career, most famously discovering the algebra of quaternions while walking along the Royal Canal in 1843.

 

Trim Visitor Centre

Housed in the old Town Hall Building Trim Visitor Centre has a Medieval Armoury Tour.  Here visitors can enjoy History brought back to life in an exciting way for everyone to enjoy.  The Visitor Centre also has a Tourist Information Point and a Gift Shop.

Listen to some wonderful audio on Trim Castle - part of the Boyne Valley Drive

 

Town
Telephone
+ 353 (0) 46 943 7227
Email Address
trimvisitorcentre@discoverboynevalley.ie
Address

Trim Visitor Centre, 

Castle Street,

Trim

C15 TXA5

Directions

View location on Google Maps here 

From M1 Motorway

At junction 10, take the N51 exit.

Continue onto R161 & continue onto Trim

From Navan

Take the 1st exit onto Railway Street & continue onto R161 & continue onto Trim

From Drogheda

At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto N51

Continue onto R161 & & continue onto Trim

From Dublin M3

Continue onto Navan Road/N3, take exit onto R156

Merge onto M3, At junction 6, take the R125 exit

Continue to follow R154

Take exit onto Castle Street

Turn right & destination will be on the right

 

Parking: Trim Town Centre has pay and display parking 9.00-18.00 Monday to Saturday with an hourly rate of €1.00.
Special offer: all-day parking for €3.00 available in Emmet Street Car Park, Trim, 3 minutes walk from Trim Castle Entrance. See Map to Emmet Street Car Park.  

 

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/TrimTouristOffice
Latitude
53.5548
Longitude
-6.78976
Region
Images
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GPS: 53.5548, -6.78976

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