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MULHUSSEY

CO. MEATH · IE

Mulhussey
Maol Hosae, Co. Meath

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

Maol Hosae · Co. Meath

A townland, not really a village - named for the Norman family who built a tower house here in the 1200s to mind the land for the Lord of Trim.

Mulhussey (Maol Hosae, 'Hussey's summit') is a townland in the parish of Kilcloon, at the very south of County Meath where it runs down toward Kilcock and the Kildare line. Call it a village if you like, but it is really a scatter of houses, a national school, a church and a ruined castle in flat farming country. The post comes from Kilcock post office across the county boundary, which tells you most of what you need to know about scale.

The name is the history. The Husseys were a Norman family who came over in the wake of the conquest, and in the thirteenth century the Lord of Trim sent them out to this corner - close to the great Fitzgerald castle at Maynooth - to build a tower house and manor and hold the land for the de Lacys. They held it for centuries. The Civil Survey of the mid-1650s still has Edward Hussey of Mulhussey on 418 acres with 'a Castle, a house and a Mill with seven cottages'. The Mill stood on a tributary of the River Tolka that still threads through the townland.

There is not a lot to come for, and the page will not pretend otherwise. No pub, no shop you would plan a day around, no marked trail. What is here is old and worth a slow look if you are already passing: the stump of the tower, the small church beside it, and the holy well at Calgath. If you want a working village with a counter and a pint, Batterstown and Kilcock are a few minutes down the road.

Population

~280 in Kilcloon census town (2016); the townland itself is a handful of houses

Founded

Norman tower house, 13th century (the Hussey family)

Coords

53.4371° N, 6.6225° W

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At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The name

Maol Hosae - Hussey's summit.

The Husseys were a Norman family granted land here in the thirteenth century. The place took their name. Folklore offers a second reading: maol means bald, and the story goes the last occupant of the tower house was a bald woman. Take that one with salt.

Stories & lore → 02 The castle

A tower house that is mostly gone.

The Civil Survey of the 1650s records Edward Hussey holding 418 acres here with a castle, a house and a mill. What survives now is one battered corner of the tower, about three metres high, with a later house built onto its line.

Stories & lore → 03 The well

St Bridgid's Well at Calgath.

A holy well in the neighbouring townland of Calgath, one of the old religious antiquities of Kilcloon parish. A spring, a saint's name, the usual long continuity of devotion. Quiet and easy to miss.

Stories & lore →

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Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Norman settlement, 13th century onward

The Husseys and the tower house

The Husseys were among the Norman families planted across Meath after Hugh de Lacy was granted the lordship of the kingdom in 1172. The Lord of Trim sent them to this southern edge of the county, hard against the Fitzgerald power base at Maynooth, with a job to do: build a tower house and manor, work the land, and hold it. The place took their name - Maol Hosae, anglicised to Mulhussey. They were still here in 1640: the Civil Survey compiled a few years later records Edward Hussey of Mulhussey holding 418 acres, with a castle, a house and a mill with seven cottages on the premises. That is a substantial medieval holding, and it lasted the guts of four centuries.

A corner, a base-batter, a draw-bar socket

What is left of the castle

Do not arrive expecting a castle. The tower house is mostly gone. What survives is the south-west angle - a battered base with hammer-dressed quoins, standing about three metres high - and the traceable outline of a rectangular building roughly 13 metres by 9. The east gable of a later eighteenth or nineteenth century house was built straight onto the line of the tower's west wall, and there is a draw-bar socket from a doorway still visible in the south wall, the slot where a timber bar once braced the door shut. It sits on a slight rise in otherwise level land. Folklore says the last person to live in it was a bald woman, which is offered as the second meaning of maol. The archaeology does not comment.

Estate chapel and holy well, Calgath

The church and St Bridgid's Well

About 170 metres west of the castle stands Mulhussey church, small enough that it probably served the Husseys as a private or estate chapel rather than a parish church. Locally it has been called the Little Chapel. A short way off, in the neighbouring townland of Calgath, is St Bridgid's Well - one of the religious antiquities of Kilcloon parish. Wells named for Brigid are scattered the length of Ireland, springs that carried devotion and a reputation for healing from well before the medieval parish was drawn up. The well at Calgath is the quiet survivor of that older landscape: water, a saint's name, and the long habit of people stopping at a particular spot.

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Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Castle and church loop Not a waymarked walk - more a short potter on the back roads. The tower-house remnant on its low rise, the small church about 170 metres to the west, and the lanes between. The land is flat and farmed and the Tolka tributary runs nearby. Boots after rain, respect for field boundaries, and do not expect signage.

1 km, on foot from the roadsidedistance

30 minutestime

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What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a village centre

There is no main street, no pub, no shop to build a visit around. Mulhussey is a townland with a school, a church and a ruin. Set the expectation low and the old stones reward you; arrive looking for a day out and you will be back in the car in ten minutes.

A standing castle

The 'castle' is one battered corner about three metres high, with a later farmhouse built onto its line. It is genuine medieval fabric and worth the look, but it is a fragment, not a tower you can walk into.

Getting there.

By car

Mulhussey sits on the back roads off the R148 between Kilcock and Maynooth. From Kilcock it is roughly 6 km north; from Maynooth about 8 km north-west; from Dunboyne around 16 km east. The M4 (junction 8, Kilcock) is the fast road in. Local secondary roads from every direction, and no obvious signpost - use the townland on a map.

By bus

No village service. Kilcock and Maynooth, both a short drive south, are on the main Bus Éireann and commuter routes to Dublin along the M4 corridor.

By train

No station. The nearest is Kilcock on the Dublin-Sligo line (about 6 km south), with frequent commuter services to Dublin Connolly. Maynooth station, on the same and the Maynooth commuter line, is the larger option about 8 km away.