Maynooth is a small university town in County Kildare, about 25 kilometres west of Dublin along the Royal Canal. Two institutions define it: Maynooth University (officially the National University of Ireland, Maynooth), a busy campus with around 14,000 students that lends the town its youthful energy and decent café culture, and St Patrick's College, the great 19th-century Catholic seminary where generations of Irish priests were trained. The seminary grounds contain a small but interesting Ecclesiastical Museum with vestments, manuscripts, and relics connected to the Irish church.
The ruins of Maynooth Castle, a 12th-century stronghold of the Fitzgerald earls of Kildare, stand in the middle of town and are free to visit. The canal towpath makes a pleasant walk east toward Dublin or west into open Kildare countryside. Maynooth is easily reached by commuter rail from Dublin Connolly in under half an hour, which makes it a comfortable day trip from the capital.