What is recorded here

Mullingar still holds the ghost of Sir Thomas Nugent’s castle, lost beside Adam Petit’s on the north side of Main Street. James McCabe may have lived where the high street touched the west wall, while Nugent kept his hall and garden above the ordinary town. Henry Piers watched fashionable castles become common houses decades later, erasing the boundary between noble memory and domestic forgetfulness.

Listed in the 1641-53 Survey of Mullingar as Sir Thomas Nugent's Castle and hall castle located next to Adam Petit's Castle (WM019-089041-). Located on the N side of Main St. The precise location of this castle within the historic town of Mullingar has not been identified (Andrews and Davies 1992, 10). Described in 1653 as 'lying and being from the walls of the said town on the north, the house wherein sometimes James McCabe dwelt on the east, the high street on the south, to Sir Thomas Nugents castle on the west' (Ibid., 14). The 1641-53 Survey recorded that 'Sir Thomas Nugent knight and baronet son and heir to Sir Christopher Nugent kinght the 23rd of October 1641 being then full of age was seized in his demesne by descent of and in one castle hall and garden' (Ibid., 15). In 1682 Sir Henry Piers recorded that in the town of Mullingar (WM019-089----) there were, ‘ancient buildings here [that] were old fashionable castles (WM019-089001-; WM019-089008-; WM019-089010-; WM019-089029-; WM019-089030-; WM019-089032-), some of which remain yet, and some are demolished, and better or at least more commodious houses are built in their room’ (Vallancey 1786, 78). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 1 July 2014

Sir Thomas Nugent held the castle in the mid-17th century, as recorded in the 1641-53 Survey of Mullingar. It is remembered as part of the historical landscape of early modern Ireland and in association with the Nugent family, a prominent local Gaelic dynasty.

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