Maynooth, as a village, is lovely. The two main streets are lined with stereotypical multi-colored buildings. And the older parts of town have cobble stoned slabs in between the concrete blocks that have been slowly replacing them over the years. Also, in case you are wondering, there literally is a pub on every corner (but considering Maynooth only has a few corners it's not that big of a deal). The tallest building in the whole town is Saint Patrick's College's Cathedral, which can be seen before you even enter the town.
Maynooth, as a university, is equally lovely. NUIM is split into two campuses, the north and the south which are connected by a bridge that runs over the main road out of the village. The north is much newer and so the buildings have that 1970s, 1980s flat flare look. My apartment building (which is a relatively new addition) sits just along the edge of this side of the University. The south campus, however, is far older. Most of the buildings are Georgian and while our tour guides held the belief that they were drafty and dark and depressing, I thought they were really something to admire. The main part of this side of the campus is Saint Joseph's square which is basically a giant green that is surrounded by the most gorgeous Georgian style buildings. It used to be strictly a seminary but now it's used for classes and offices.
Now I didn't take this next few pictures but I thought I would upload them anyway because I thought it would give you a better idea of how awesome it was. This is one of the views from Saint Joseph's square (this was behind me when I went on the tour).
Another view--this would be to the right of me on my tour.
This would be the full view of the building that was behind me (it also doubles as the Cathedral--the tallest building in the town).
Now this wasn't apart of Saint Joseph's square but it was equally cool. This was the pond/green behind the Cathedral. The pond was built in honor of Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland and is supposed to represent the garden of Eden (of course it doesn't really look Eden-y because of the gray weather but it was still nice).
Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the inside of the Cathedral which is a real shame because it was absolutely breathtaking. I teared up when I went inside (not even going to lie). It puts the Cathedral at Notre Dame to shame. Not because it's more beautiful or more decadent (if anything it's a little less exaggerated), but because you can feel the antiquity. What made it perfect was that as we were walking in to check it out the choir began practicing so we had this this really haunting music in the background as we stood in awe of the gorgeous building. It was absolutely amazing.
Oh yeah, the south side of campus comes complete with it's own castle. Yeah...a castle. Maynooth and County Kildare (in the old days as the locals say) used to be the major stronghold for the rulers of Ireland (both Irish and British) and so they have a ton of ruins but Maynooth Castle is located directly on South campus. Our tour guides were saying that the family who owned it most recently (and by recently I mean like 300 or so years ago) was the Fitzgerald family. Ironically, the only thing the Fitzgerald family owns now is a pub called The Roost. Mind you, it's the most popular pub in the county. Yes, the county.
All in all, I've only been here a few days and I already feel like I've seen and learned so many things and I can't wait for more.
