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50
LEINSTER
cor, to see where Swift lived in the early days of his
growing fame. At Trim you will find an amazing
cluster of beautiful ruins, but notably "King John's
Castle", as fine a specimen of the Norman keep as
can be seen. It was founded in 1173 by Hugh de Lacy,
so no Norman building can be much older in Ireland.
Its history is full of romance—Richard II held Henry
of Lancaster prisoner there for a while—and many
deeds of note were done in the old place. But there
is not space to deal with Trim, nor with the beautiful
ruins of Bective Abbey, which you can arrange to
see on the way to what no traveller should leave
unseen—the Hill of Tara.
Tara of to-day is only a field or two of rich grass,
covered with the trace of ancient earthworks—most
curious of them the Banqueting Hall of King Cormac,
a long narrow parallelogram—250 yards in length by
15 wide—with the fourteen openings of its doors still
traceable, as they are shown in two plans preserved
in very ancient Irish manuscripts. But for the
detail of these monuments you must consult the plan
in Mr. Cooke's admirable "Murray"; for some general
account of the history of Tara I may refer to my
own Fair Hills of Ireland. Here I single out only
one thread in that vast fabric of associations.
Looking north-east from Tara you will see easily
(any child can point it out) another somewhat higher