What is recorded here

Griffinstown Castle vanished before it was ever drawn, leaving behind only a ghost in the numbers. Walter Griffen died in 1618 with a castle, twenty homes and six hundred acres of living land, yet the surveyors arrived later to find no stone worth marking. The castle may have rotted into the earth or never stood at all, but the fields remembered the shape of what they held.

The precise location of Griffinstown Castle hast not been identified within the townland of Griffinstown. The 1618 inquisition held at Mullingar into the estate of the deceased Walter Griffen of Griffinstown recorded that he possessed one castle, 20 messuages, 2 gardens, 240 acres arable, 200 acres of pasture & 60 acres of wood in the townland of Griffinstown (Anon 1826, 19 Jac 1). No castle is depicted in the townland of Griffinstown on the 1655 Down Survey map of Farbill barony. The Down Survey records Edward Griffen and Sir Luke FitzGerald as landowners in the townland of Griffinstown (NLI, MS 723-4). John O’Donovan’s notes on Westmeath recorded that in the townland of Griffinstown there was ‘an old castle in ruins 50 feet [15m] high’ (SMR File). The precise location of this castle within the townland of Griffinstown has not been identified. The RMP map of Co. Westmeath marks the location of Griffinstown House as the site of the castle. There is no evidence to suggest that a castle was located on the grounds of Griffinstown House which was constructed in the early 19th century. Compiled and revised by: Caimin O’Brien Date of revised upload: 12 October 2016

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