Of all the buildings for defensive purposes that the Anglo-Normans, or, more correctly, the Anglo-French, ever raised in Ireland, the castle of Trim is the largest and most imposing. It has stood many a siege, and it seems that one wing of it has entirely disappeared; but what remains of it still is a gigantic structure. No other Anglo-French keep in Ireland had such an extensive _enceinte_. There cannot be much less than three acres of enclosed ground round it. The outworks have been, to a large extent, demolished, but enough of them remains to show that when the castle was in repair, when its outward defences were perfect, and before the invention of gunpowder, it could have defied the largest army that ever Irish king or chieftain led. The place chosen for the site of this castle is perfectly flat. It is not on a hill. Its builder seems to have known that its six feet thick walls would be impregnable to any army that could be brought against it, whether it was on a hill or in a hollow. Its situation is very fine on the banks of the Boyne, and in the centre of a country considered by many to be the richest land in Ireland. [Illustration: TRIM CASTLE.] Never did any people bring the art of castle-building to such perfection as did the Anglo-French; and, strange as it may appear, it was not in England they raised their finest castles, but in Wales and in Ireland. They must have known almost immediately after the battle of Hastings that no serious resistance would ever be made against them in England, but they were not so sure about Ireland and Wales; there do not seem, therefore, to have been any castles erected by them in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as fine as those they erected in those parts of their dominions like Ireland and Wales, that were not fully conquered. Conway and Caernarvon Castles in Wales, and Trim Castle in Ireland, are thought to be the finest they ever erected. With all the architectural skill the Greeks and Romans possessed, it is very doubtful if they understood the art of castle building as well as the Norman-French did. The latter built buildings that would last almost as long as the earth itself. That part of the walls of Trim Castle that yet remains is as sound as it was the day it was built; and if let alone and not overturned by an earthquake it will be as sound a thousand years hence as it is to-day. [Illustration: TRIM CASTLE.]