Castlepollard, Baile na gCros, Co. Westmeath

Baile na gCros · Co. Westmeath

A triangular green, a Pakenham castle up the road, and a swimming lake worth the walk.

Castlepollard is a triangle of grass with a town built around it. The plantation surveyors who laid it out under a charter from Charles II didn't draw a square - they drew a wedge, narrow at one end and broad at the other, and the Georgian shopfronts followed the line. Stand at the wide end by the Children of Lir sculpture, look down toward St Michael's at the narrow end, and you are looking at four hundred years of unaltered geometry.

What gives the town its weight is what's around it rather than what's on it. Two kilometres out the road, Tullynally Castle has been the seat of the Pakenhams - the Earls of Longford - since 1655. The historian Thomas Pakenham still lives in it, still writes books in it, and still opens the gardens to visitors from late March until September. It is a working family home, not a museum, and it shows.

The other reason to come is Lough Lene, five kilometres east toward Collinstown. When Ireland joined the EU, Lough Lene became the first freshwater lake on the island to fly a Blue Flag for clean water, and it has done so most years since. The Cut - a limestone-fringed swimming spot at the south-east corner - is where the town actually goes on a hot Sunday.

Stay an hour, walk the green, drive to the gardens, finish at the lake. That is the day. Castlepollard is not a place that hides anything; it just sits quietly in north Westmeath and waits for you to notice the three things it has, all of which are worth the trip.

Population

~1,350

Walk score

Round the green in five minutes

Founded

Charter under Charles II

Coords

53.6739° N, 7.3022° W

01 / 09

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 green

A triangular market square, not a square at all.

The plantation-era town plan is a triangle of grass surrounded by Georgian shopfronts. The Children of Lir sculpture sits at one end. You walk it in five minutes and have seen the town.

Stories & lore → 02 Tullynally

The Pakenhams have been up the road since the 1650s.

Two kilometres out, the gardens of Tullynally Castle open Thursday to Sunday from late March to September. The castle is still lived in. The current owner is the historian Thomas Pakenham, who has gardened here over fifty years.

Walks & outings → 03 Lough Lene

Ireland's first Blue Flag freshwater lake.

A limestone lake five kilometres east, between here and Collinstown. Gin-clear water, a swimming spot called the Cut, and a pollution-free record going back to the year Ireland joined the EU.

Walks & outings →

02 / 09

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Regan's Gastro Pub & Restaurant

Dining-led local

Pub & food

On the green. The pub the visiting Tullynally crowd ends up in for dinner, and most local Saturday nights as well. Standard Irish pub menu done well.

Castle Varagh Hotel bar

Newer, mixed

Hotel bar

Opened December 2022 in a refurbished building on the square. Hotel bar with food, comfortable rather than characterful, but the only late drink in town some nights.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Tullynally Tea Rooms	Tea room	€	In the stableyard at Tullynally Castle, two kilometres out. Open the same days as the gardens - late March to September, Thursday to Sunday. Soup, scones, a slice of cake, eat it in a courtyard the Pakenhams' horses used to live in.
Regan's	Gastro pub	€€	On the green. Pub food taken seriously - steaks, fish, a Sunday carvery. The town's reliable dinner.
Castle Varagh restaurant	Hotel restaurant	€€	Inside the hotel on the square. Brunch, lunch, dinner, the full hotel menu. Useful if you are staying or if Regan's is full.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Castle Varagh Hotel	Hotel	On the square. Eighteen rooms, opened December 2022 in a refurbished building. The only hotel in the village proper. Some rooms look out onto the green.
B&Bs around Lough Lene	B&Bs and self-catering	There is no large B&B cluster in Castlepollard itself. Most lake-side options sit closer to Collinstown or out the Fore road. Book by the lake if you are coming for the swim.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

How the town got its name

Captain Pollard

Nicholas Pollard came over from Devonshire in 1597 as a captain in the army of the Earl of Essex during the Nine Years' War. He stayed, took land, and his family built a fortified manor that gave the place its English name - Castlepollard, replacing the older Gaelic designation Rathyoung. Walter Pollard was later granted a charter under Charles II to lay out a town with a market and four annual fairs. The triangular green is what they drew on the page, and it has not been redrawn since.

Same family, 1655 onward

Tullynally and the Pakenhams

Henry Pakenham bought the Tullynally estate around 1655. The family became the Earls of Longford, gothicised the house in the early 19th century - Francis Johnston and the Morrison brothers worked on it - and renamed it Tullynally, meaning hill of the swan, in the 1960s. The current owner, Thomas Pakenham, inherited the estate in 1961, has written books on the Boer War and on Irish trees, and has gardened the place with his late wife Valerie for over fifty years. The castle is still in family hands. The gardens open Thursday to Sunday, late March to September.

Ireland's cleanest fresh water

Lough Lene's Blue Flag

When Ireland joined the European Union in 1973, Lough Lene became the first freshwater lake in the country to be awarded a Blue Flag for clean water - and has held the rating with remarkable regularity ever since, mostly down to the surrounding farms and the local angling association watching it like hawks. The lake is limestone-bedded, gin-clear, and shallow enough at the south-east shore for safe swimming at the Cut. Jet-skis are banned. The trout are in good numbers. Bring a towel.

The mother and baby home

St Peter's, 1935 to 1971

St Peter's, on the edge of the town, ran from 1935 to 1971 as one of the country's mother and baby homes. It was operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, which reported in 2021, recorded that 4,972 mothers and 4,559 children passed through the institution and that 247 infants died there over its 36 years, with mortality at its worst in the first five years. The Castlepollard chapter is one of the longer ones in the report. The site has since been redeveloped. A garden of remembrance sits on what were the burial grounds. It is part of the town's story; it is not for skipping over.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Tullynally Castle Gardens Twenty-plus acres divided between walled gardens, woodland, and two ornamental lakes. Open Thursday to Sunday, late March to September. Castle tours run on a separate schedule on Thursdays to Saturdays in summer - book ahead. Tea rooms on site.

Half a daydistance

2-3 hourstime

Lough Lene at the Cut Five kilometres east of town, signposted off the Collinstown road. Limestone slabs, swimming steps, changing facilities, and the cleanest fresh water in the country. Safe for a swim from late spring to early autumn.

Lakeshore stroll, swim, picnicdistance

Whatever you havetime

The green and St Michael's Walk the triangle: Children of Lir sculpture at the wide end, Georgian fronts on both flanks, St Michael's Church at the narrow end. The church was built in 1821 by the Pollards and the interior is largely as it was in the mid-1800s.

1 kmdistance

20 mintime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Tullynally gardens open from late March. Magnolias and bluebells in April. Lough Lene starts to warm up by May. The triangular green looks its best with the new leaves on the limes.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The main season. Gardens, tea rooms, and lake all running. Swim at the Cut, walk the woodland at Tullynally, eat in the stableyard. Long evenings on a north Westmeath lake are the reason you came.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Tullynally gardens close at the end of September. Lough Lene goes quiet but the woods turn properly. After the gardens shut, the town's reasons to stay are thinner - plan around it.

◐ Mind yourself

Winter

Nov-Feb

Castle and gardens shut. The lake is for hardy swimmers only. The town is itself, the green is empty, and the hotel bar is the only thing reliably open after dark.

◐ Mind yourself

08 / 09

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Turning up at Tullynally on a Monday

Gardens open Thursday to Sunday only, late March through September. Castle tours are Thursday to Saturday in summer. Outside those days you will get the gates and a view through the railings. Check the calendar before you drive.

Trying to swim at Lough Lene anywhere but the Cut

The shoreline is mostly private farmland and reeded shallows. The Cut is the one signposted, set-up swim spot - limestone steps, changing facilities, parking. Park there, swim there, leave it as you found it.

Confusing Tullynally with Fore Abbey

Both are signposted from town. Fore is six kilometres east, near Collinstown - the Seven Wonders, a different day out, a different village's story. Don't promise yourself both in two hours.

Treating St Peter's as a curiosity

It was a mother and baby home for thirty-six years and is named in the Commission report. If you read about it, read it from the report or the news coverage. Do not arrive looking for ruins to photograph. The garden of remembrance is for sitting in quietly, if at all.