What is Maynooth worth a stop for?
Maynooth is a university town with a castle at its gate. The castle, a Fitzgerald stronghold built from the early 1200s, was ruined in the rebellion of Silken Thomas in the 1530s; entry is free and the season runs from May to September. Across the road, St Patrick's College, founded in 1795 to train Catholic priests, fronts the town with its chapel and quadrangles, and the secular university now shares the old campus. It is a student's town: cafés, bookshops and a main street with life in it during term. Trains from Connolly take about half an hour, which makes it an easy half day from Dublin or a handy base for Castletown, a short drive south.
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