Ireland day 1210. Monday 20 January 2025- Maynooth Revisited

Today’s summary	Used my free travel pass to get us both by train to Maynooth without having to pay. Fantastic. Had a good look round the town and universit(ies), exploring some of the parts we hadn’t seen last time we visited in 2022. All very interesting and the free travel worked perfectly. Lentil curry and “Mad Men” in the evening. A very good day
Today’s weather	Dull and overcast with some light rain in the morning. Hardly any wind. Appx 9c

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Maynooth Revisited

Commentary

We last visited Maynooth back in early 2022 and at the time, had very much enjoyed our trip. We always meant to go back to take a deeper look but somehow never got round to it. But with my newfound old age and the trappings that go with it – most notably my free travel card – today seemed to be the right time to go back and pay another call.

It’s quite an easy journey from Malahide to Maynooth – straight into Connolly from here, then back out again to Maynooth on the Sligo line. There are trains every half an hour – or more – from Malahide and also from Connolly, so there’s lot’s of flexibility in the journey, both on the way out and coming back. End to end, it takes about an hour and a half each way.

So today we caught a train in the late morning and arrived in Maynooth at about 12:30 – just in time for lunch. We found a nice café about ten minutes’ walk from the station, where we had a tasty and fairly leisurely pastry and coffee before setting off on our main exploration in the afternoon.

We had a good look round the town centre – which really seems to be just one or two main streets – and also at the Carton House demesne. I had no idea it was so close to Maynooth, and I don’t know it at all. Now that it’s free to get there(!) and surprisingly easily accessible, I feel a return visit is likely in the not too distant future.

From Carton Avenue we headed back down-town to have a look at the University buildings. There are actually two universities – the Pontifical University, which is a religious facility allied with the Catholic church, and the regular National University alongside it. We walked around the extensive grounds, which were pleasant although exuding an air of quiet decay on this grey January afternoon. We also had a look into some of the buildings on both campuses – the modernity of the National University contrasting with the wood panelled tranquillity of the cloisters and chapels of the Pontifical University.

After another refreshment stop in the TSI (Technology, Society and Innovation) Building, we finished off the rest of our tour and meandered our way back to the station.

We had a brief wait for trains at Maynooth and Connolly stations but otherwise a largely quick and stress-free journey back to Malahide. Now it’s time to enjoy some lentil curry for dinner, and perhaps even a couple of episodes of “Mad men”. That should round off our day out perfectly!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Leaving Maynooth station and heading over the Royal Canal bridge toward the town centre	Lunch – looking more expansive than it actually was. In the nice and unpretentious Coffee Mill Bistro

A tree-lined avenue leads from the end of Maynooth Main Street to Carton House – a “sister” to nearby Castletown House. I hadn’t realised it was quite so close to the town centre, actually. It would definitely merit a more thorough investigation	The University Chapel at St Patrick’s Pontifical University (separate from the main National University itself)

Inside one of the new buildings in the main university. (This one is the “TSI” building) It was relatively quiet as most students haven’t yet returned from Christmas holidays, but there was a nice café where we enjoyed a cup of tea while pretending to be fifty years younger than we actually were	*Sweetly-scented Witch Hazel (Hamamelis mollis) in full bloom in the main court at the front of St Patrick’s. It’s quite hard to grow and this was a particularly good specimen*

Looking for all the world like “The Dark Hedges” – an evergreen-tree tunnel leads from Collegeland to St Patrick’s College Cemetery