I moved from Dublin to Trim in county Meath for a few days this Christmas [2022].
Trim is a town in County Meath, Ireland. It is situated on the River Boyne and has a population of 9,194. The town is noted for Trim Castle – the largest Norman castle in Ireland. One of the two cathedrals of the United Dioceses of Meath and Kildare — St Patrick’s cathedral — is located north of the river.
One task that I had was to visit Bective Abbey which is close to the town of Trim and I managed to do so this morning because of a break in the weather.
Bective Abbey is a Cistercian abbey on the River Boyne in Bective, County Meath, Ireland.
The abbey was founded in 1147, and the remaining (well-preserved) structure and ruins primarily date to the 15th century. The site, including a nearby car park, were purchased by the state in 2012, and are managed by the Office of Public Works. The abbey, including its early 13th century church, 15th century cloister, and 16th century tower, is a protected structure and recorded on the register of National monuments of Ireland.
The abbey was founded in 1147 by Murchad O’Maeil-Sheachlainn, as a ‘daughter house’ of Mellifont Abbey. The abbey and its estate lands were confiscated during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, before being rented to Thomas Asgarde, and later purchased by Andrew Wyse in 1552. Around this time the estate lands were surveyed, and recorded at 1580 acres.
The site was taken into state care, and named a protected structure and National Monument. Bective Abbey was subject to a number of excavations in the early 21st century, and made more accessible to visitors around this time.
There was a story of a golden coffin that had been buried in Bective Abbey. A local man named Andy Gossan knew of its whereabouts, passing this information on to his elderly sister, Ann, on his deathbed. She in turn told the parish priest of Kilmessan, Fr. Morrissey, who took the secret to his grave, when he died in 1927, aged 86. This story was recorded by a schoolgirl, Rosie Connell in 1938.
Wolfe Tone Park, also known as Wolfe Tone Square, is a public space in Dublin. It is bounded by Mary Street to the north, Jervis Street to the east, and Wolfe Tone Street to the west.
The park is the site of a graveyard that was attached to St. Mary’s Church, and is named for Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798), who was baptised in the church. The graveyard was deconsecrated in 1966 and laid out as a green park. From 1998 to 2001, Dublin City Council redeveloped the park as an “urban plaza”. The park was closed for further regeneration works in late 2020, and reopened in mid-2022.
The site, formerly the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, was the burial place of the United Irishman Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751–1834), Mary Mercer, founder of Mercer’s Hospital (died 1734), the philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), Sir Boyle Roche, 1st Baronet (1736–1807), an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons, and Lord Norbury (1745–1831; known colloquially as the hanging judge).
From the 1960s to the 1990s, the site operated as a green space, maintained by Dublin City Council. In 1998, the council held a competition to redesign the park, which was won by Peter Cody of Boyd Cody Architects. The updated layout, in the form of an “urban plaza”, was completed in 2001. After the square’s layout was changed, it was made available by Dublin City Council for events, including the Dublin Fringe Festival.
Following a campaign from local residents to restore Wolfe Tone Park as a non-commercial green space, there was debate in the council as to the future use of the park as of 2015. Ultimately the park was closed between 2020 and 2022, and Dublin City Council redeveloped and restored it to a green space.
I am not sure if I would consider it to be a green space but it is much better than it was and to date anti-social activity has reduced.
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