Historical Features
The town has, at either end of the main street, Maynooth Castle and Carton House: two former seats of the Dukes of Leinster. The castle was a stronghold of the 16th century historical figure Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare better known as Silken Thomas. The castle was overrun in 1535, after the rebellion of the Earl.
The village is just inside the western edge of The Pale.
The most important historical buildings in the town are those of St. Patrick's College and some of which antedate the foundation of the college, while others are in the late Georgian and neo-Gothic revival style. The "new range" of buildings was erected by A. W. N. Pugin in 1850 under a commission from then college president Laurence F. Renehan, while the College Chapel was designed and completed by James Joseph McCarthy during the presidency of Dr. Robert Browne in 1894.
The famed Conolly's Folly is also near the town, although it is arguably in Celbridge, as it is much closer to it, but is covered by Maynooth's very extensive town boundaries. It was known to be the gateway to the west as the main route from Dublin.
There are three old monastic settlements in the vicinity of Maynooth, including Laraghbryan and its cemetery, Taghadoe and its Round Tower and Grangewilliam(Donaghmore).
Read more about this topic: Maynooth
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or features:
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)
“Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)