Qualla: Castlepollard

Castlepollard: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fiona MacGinty-O’Neill, CC BY 2.0. In the middle of Castlepollard, on a triangular green ringed by Georgian buildings, stands a sculpture of four swans. They are the Children of Lir, the four siblings of Irish myth who were transformed by their jealous stepmother and condemned to spend nine hundred years on the cold lakes of the country before being released back into human form to die. The setting of the story, by tradition, is Lough Derravaragh, a few kilometres south. A plaque beside the sculpture tells the tale in several languages, for the visitors who occasionally find their way to this small town in the north of County Westmeath.

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Image: Fiona MacGinty-O’Neill | CC BY 2.0

Castlepollard: Two Names, One Place

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gavigan, CC BY-SA 3.0. The town has two names. In English it is Castlepollard, after the Pollard family, the 'Old English' landlords who took possession of the area in the early seventeenth century. In Irish it is sometimes Cionn Toirc — anglicised as Kinturk — meaning "head of the boar." Both names si...

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Image: Gavigan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castlepollard: The Burning of the Market House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mullingar, CC BY 2.5. In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, the IRA mounted a coordinated wave of attacks on government buildings across the country, aimed at paralysing the British administration in Ireland. Castlepollard's Market House was set alight along with the Royal Irish Constabulary ...

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Image: Mullingar | CC BY 2.5

Castlepollard: Tullynally and the Pakenhams

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KinturkMan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two kilometres west on the Granard Road stands Tullynally Castle, the seat of the Pakenham family — also known as Pakenham Hall, after the surname they held before being elevated to the earldom of Longford. The original house was a fortified building from around 1655, remodelled ...

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Image: KinturkMan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castlepollard: The Sacred Heart Sisters

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mccloughlin, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the eastern edge of the town, set back from the road in what was once the Kinturk Demesne, stands a complex of buildings that Castlepollard has only recently begun to discuss openly. The Sacred Heart Sisters bought the Kinturk House and grounds from the Pollard family in 1935 ...

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Image: Mccloughlin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castlepollard: A Town That Has Grown

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The Castlepollard of today is a small but growing community, its population having increased by more than 50% in the twenty years between the 2002 and 2022 censuses — from 895 inhabitants to 1,349. The hurling club has won the Westmeath Senior Hurling Championship fourteen times,...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0