Day 1--County Meath

We arrived in the Dublin airport at 8:30 in the morning. It is an easy airport to navigate, no problems to speak of. We got our rental car. That was fun, lets drive on the other side of the road in a busy place with me navigating--I get really car sick if I read in the car, so I really shouldn't look at maps. It was a fun time. We got completely lost, the roads are really narrow and people drive like maniacs. They pass everywhere and drive really fast, the hedges grow higher than the signs and they think of lanes as a general suggestions, nothing to take too seriously. So we pulled into a gas station and asked for directions. The clerk was very helpful and told us where we needed to go. Back out to the roads, but oh wait, the reverse in the car doesnt work. After about 10 minutes of messing with it, we decided it is broken (it just wouldnt go into gear) and that we would have to return to the airport to get a new car. So I push us out of the parking lotI am sure the clerk was hysterically laughing by nowand we drove back towards the airport. Devin decided that he wanted to check one more time, so we found a large hotel with a parking lot and a decent hill so that we can roll backwards if need be. Well, there is a little ring thing that you have to pull up to get it into reverse, which thankfully we figured out before we got back to the airport. Back on the road again. Our first stop was the Hill of Tara, a very old druid burial site. It was neat but the pictures dont do it justice. There was a building and a mote, and now it is covered with grass and dirt, so there are these HUGE gullies all over the place. We took a picture of the aerial photograph that was at the site. There is also a large standing stone at the site. This place is very large, we walked all over it, it was interesting to see and it provided some great first views of Ireland . From the Hill of Tara we could see some castle, we assumed Slaine, so we left in that direction to find it. We didnt find it, but we found a nice little town and had some lunch. There were some nice ruins and a bridge, so I want to the car to get my camera and take a few pictures. Well, we are lucky we did. To get a good view of the bridge we had to walk down a bit and we ran into one of the best castles in Ireland , Trimm Castle . We bought a heritage card, for anyone thinking of going, this is a great deal and gets you into sites all over Ireland for free. The castle was amazing and well maintained, with a wall and tower still intact.