What is recorded here

Davidstown Castle vanished before human memory, leaving only a tower-house drawing on a 1655-9 map and no certain ground beneath it. That absence is the shape of the place: a room in Westmeath whose floor has been forgotten. Oliver Dalton may have stood inside it in 1641, looking across land that became somebody else's after defeat. The castle did not stop existing; it stopped being visible, which is harder for pride to accept.

The precise location of Davidstown Castle has not been identified. A tower house type castle is depicted in 'Painestowne' [Davidstown] on the 1655-9 Down Survey map of Rathconrath parish where it is depicted standing on lands owned by Oliver Dalton, an Irish papist, in 1641 (NLI, MS 723-4). On this map the castle is shown standing close to the townland boundary with Milltown. The castle is not depicted on any edition of the OS 6-inch maps. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 5 October 2016

Davidstown Castle was likely a tower house built in the 17th century, as indicated by its depiction on the 1655–1659 Down Survey map. It is remembered as part of the historical landscape of Rathconrath parish, though its exact location and builders remain unidentified.

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