NARRATOR: The imposing fortress
of Trim castle in County Meath,
featured extensively in
Mel Gibson's "Braveheart."
Doubling as the besieged
citadel of York and London's
medieval Smithfield,
where the hero
William Wallace is executed.
Built in 1173 by the
Anglo-Norman Baron Hugh de
Lacy, the castle was
once a powerful symbol
of English rule in Ireland.
In the 1970s, excavations
revealed 10 headless skeletons,
the remains of executed thieves
whose heads were mounted
on spikes on the castle walls.
In the late Middle
Ages, the fortress
defended the outer edge of the
pale, the part of east Ireland
dominated by the English.
Everything outside
was considered
the lawless, uncivilized domain
of the native Irish, hence
the phrase beyond the pale.