Mullingar & Environs (Co. Westmeath)
Mullingar (An Muileann gCearr – ‘The Lefthandwise Mill”) (pop. 18,600) is a prosperous town, vying with Athlone as the largest in the Midlands.
Mullingar’s Dominick Place, where the Famine Memorial Fountain (1997) incorporates a somewhat lavatorial millstone, recalling the origin of the town’s name. (Photo by CGorman).
Mullingar is situated on the River Brosna, partly encircled by the Royal Canal and close to Lough Ennell, Lough Owel, Lough Derravaragh and Lough Lene. The surrounding countryside is green and lush, ideal for cattle rearing.
Although Mullingar has several good pubs / eateries etc, the town cannot really be described as exciting. It is probably best known in Ireland for the charming expression commonly used to refer to large women: “beef to the ankle, like a Mullingar heifer“.
Mullingar History
There has been human settlement in the Mullingar area since at least the late Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago. What is now Mullingar’s main street was part of an east-west roadway known to have existed since early Christian times, when Saint Colmán and Saint Loman established monastic settlements nearby. The oldest surviving stone building in the district is a souterrain dating back to the C7th.
Anciently known as Maelblatha, the district is said to have changed its name due to a miraculous mill mentioned in the legend of Saint Colman. Coins found in Lough Ennell indicate a Viking presence in the area 1,000 years ago. Malachi II, High King of Ireland 1014-1022, had a fort built in the vicinity.
Mullingar was established as a Norman Manor and Borough by the Petit family in the last decades of the C12th. The first inhabitants were a mixture of English, Welsh, French, Breton and Flemish immigrants. The settlement had a castle, a parish church, an Augustinian abbey, a Dominican priory, a hospital and a Frankhouse / hostel run by the Knights Hospitaller.
Mullingar became an important medieval trading post and resting place for travellers. Artefacts unearthed in the recently rediscovered Augustinian graveyard show that some of those buried there had been on pilgrimages to Santiago De Compostela in Spain.
The two monasteries were dissolved and a Protestant community was established around the same time King Henry VIII made Westmeath a County in 1542, when Mullingar became the County Town. In 1575 the population was decimated by plague, and the town was burned to the ground by the O’Neills in 1597.
The Cromwellian land redistribution replaced dispossessed local landowners with new English and Scottish settlers. In 1661, the Manor of Mullingar was granted to Lieut-GeneralSir Arthur Forbes, Marshal of the Army in Ireland after King Charles II‘s Restoration, later Lord Justice of Ireland and 1st Viscount & Earl of Granard, whose descendants controlled the town for 200 years. In 1690, the Williamite army occupied Mullingar and stockpiled it with weapons and provisions for the campaign against the Jacobites.
By the C18th, Mullingar was a major centre for the sale of wool, and the local livestock fairs attracted buyers and sellers from all over Ireland and beyond. The town was rebuilt following a disastrous fire in 1747 . The majority of the population were Roman Catholic and in 1755, despite the Penal Laws, they erected a slate roofed parish chapel. There was also a substantial Church of Ireland community, and by the early 1800s, there were some Presbyterians and Methodists too.
Already a major coach stop, Mullingar’s importance as a transport hub increased with the 1806 construction of the Royal Canal. The various British army regiments stationed in the local military barracks were a source of employment, and men from Mullingar served all over the British Empire,while soldiers from elsewhere in the UK married and settled in the district. C19th Mullingar also had a police barracks, a jail and a courthouse (rebuilt 1832). A Roman Catholic Cathedral was built in 1836. The Midland Great Western Railway reached Mullingar in 1848.
Mullingar’s prosperity was unevenly distributed, with much poor housing and periodic outbreaks of cholera and other diseases. The Great Famine and widespread unemployment led to a massive upsurge in emigration.
Mullingar was purchased in 1858 by Fulke Southwell Greville, Liberal MP for Longford, who assumed the additional surname of Nugent in 1866 and was later made Baron Greville of Clonyn. In 1868, he granted a Right of Way to the War Minister for 10,000,000 years – the longest lease in the world.
Changing agricultural practices, recession and unjust land laws led to many evictions and notable acts of violence in the rural hinterland, especially during the 1860s and 1870s.
The early C2oth saw the arrival of electric light and the first motorcars in Mullingar. The town was a major military training depot for Kitchener’s Volunteer Army during WWI, and scores of locals signed up to serve in the British armed forces.
During the 1916-1922 Troubles, many Nationalist sympathisers from Mullingar took part in the Independence movement. Sean McEoin was shot and wounded by British focewhile trying to escape arrest in Mullingar in 1921.
The Irish Army took over the barracks early in 1922, and the first Gardaí arrived at the end of that year. Mullingar escaped the worst of the Civil War, although several serious incidents included the arrest and subsequent spectacular escape from prison of Annie MP Smithson, a nurse of Anglo-Irish roots who became a popular writer and Sinn Fein campaigner.
Mullingar was long a major centre for the cattle trade and the beef and dairy industries, but as its importance as an agricultural market town waned in the second half of the C2oth, it developed a strong new technology base. The Celtic Tiger years saw the local population almost treble, and the town expanded dramatically in all directions, with improved transport links making it almost a suburb of DUBLIN.
All Saints church (CoI), constructed in 1816, appears to be Mullingar’s oldest public building still used fo its original purpose.
Market Square
Mullingar’s Market House (1859) is now used as the local museum and exhibition gallery for the adjacent Art Centre.
The County Council buildings and County Hall (now an Arts Centre with a theatre) were built between 1910 and 1913 on the site of the old jail.
The spectacular modern County Buildings / Civic Offices complex houses a good library.
A statue of the popular singer Joe Dolan (1939 – 2007) was erected in the square in 2008.
Mullingar Barracks, called after the Duke of Wellington when opened in 1814, was renamed in 1922 in honour of Captain Patrick Columb, a Free State officer killed on Patrick Street that year, and shortly afterwards was the site of the last executions in Mullingar’s history, when two men were shot for armed robbery at the height of the Civil War. The complex includes St Colman’s military chapel (RC) and rectory, both built as Church of Ireland edifices in 1855. Long the only Artillery barracks in the Republic, it was officially closed in March 2012.b
The first Mullingar Railway Station was a temporary structure opened in 1848; the present structure dates from 1855, and is nowadays used for a Commuter service to DUBLIN and the Sligo – Dublin Intercity train. The old line to Athlone is no longer in use. A turntable for steam locomotives is used by a couple of times a year at the behest of the local branch of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland.
Newbrook Racecourse, a popular venue for horse races from 1852 to 1961, had its own Athlone Line railway station, unique in that its two platforms were both on the Down track.
Mullingar Cathedral
The Cathedral of Christ the King (RC), here seen from Mary St, has 55m / 140ft twin towers that dominate the townscape. (Photo by Brian Shaw)
The imposing Renaissance style edifice was built between 1932 and 1936 to replace the 1836 Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception as the See of the Diocese of Meath, and can seat 5000.
The interior features beautiful mosaics by the prominent London-based Russian artist Boris Anrep (1883 – 1969) of Saint Patrick and Saint Anne (said to resembel the poet Anna Akhmatova, with whom he had an affair during WWI). There is also an interesting ecclesiastical museum.
The Cathedral is undoubtedly Mullingar’s most striking structure. (Photo by Peter Gavigan).
Mullingar’s Presbyterian church on Castle Street has, according to its website, been outgrown by the congregation.
Mullingar also has a Baptist church in Bishopsgate Street.
Mullingar Town Park is a pleasant green space with a pond.
A Farmers’ Market is held in Mullingar every Sunday.
The Stables is Mullingar’s main original live music venue.
Danny Byrne’s is another popular host to cover bands and DJs.
The Greville Arms Hotel opened in 1884. Notable guests have included James Joyce, who as a boy accompanied his civil servant father, John, as he compiled an electoral register of Mullingar and the surrounding townlands. The author later recorded his impressions in his novels Stephen Hero and Ulysses. Centrally located, the hotel nowadays advertises itself as the town’s “entertainment hotspot“.
Annebrook House Hotel comprises an elegant Georgian house (1810) almost dwarfed by two hideous modern wings. Attractive formal gardens make this family-run four-star hotel a popular wedding venue.
The Newbury Hotel, centrally situated near the Railway Station, is well-reviewed on the Internet for its cosy bar and basement Chinese restaurant.
Lynn Greyhound Track hosts regular greyhound races, usually on Thursday and Saturday evenings. (Photo – Gavigan)
Mullingar Equestrian Centre, an international riding venue, regularly hosts competitions. Other schools in the area include Ladestown Riding School and Catherinestown Riding School. Studs include Tally Ho Stud, Cleaboy Stud, and Charlestown Stud.
Mullingar is most famous for its neighbouring lakes and late C18th ‘Big Houses’, especially Belvedere House & Gardens and Bloomfield House, now a hotel.
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