Delvin, Dealbhna, Co. Westmeath

Dealbhna · Co. Westmeath

The village that burned a book in 1918 and never quite forgave the author.

Delvin is a one-street village on the N52 with two ruined castles, a tower the Nugents built in 1181, and a literary scandal that still has people lowering their voices a hundred years later. That last bit is the reason anyone in Ireland with a degree in English knows the name. The rest of the country mostly drives through.

The scandal: in 1918 a young Delvin man called John Weldon - pen name Brinsley MacNamara - published a novel called The Valley of the Squinting Windows. The fictional village was Garradrimna. Every reader in Delvin recognised every character. The book was read aloud on the steps of Clonyn Castle, copies were burned in the centre of the village, MacNamara was sued and ordered to pay compensation, and his father - the principal of the national school at Ballinvalley - was boycotted into emigration. MacNamara himself never lived in Delvin again. The book is still in print. The village is still touchy about it.

What you actually find on the ground is two castles and a road. The original Delvin Castle - Nugent's Castle, twelfth-century, four-towered, ruined - sits in a field beside the main street. A second Nugent castle, Clonyn, was built up the hill in 1639, burned by its own owner when Cromwell came near, rebuilt as a Victorian baronial pile in the 1870s, and is now in private hands. You can see it from the road. That is the level of access on offer.

Come for the story, stand at the castle for ten minutes, read a chapter of the book on a bench, drive on to Castlepollard or Kells. Delvin is a stop, not a stay. It earns the stop.

Population

~740 (2016 census, up from 270 in 2002)

Walk score

Main street in five minutes

Founded

Norman castle here from 1181

Coords

53.6092 N, 7.0894 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 scandal

A novel set fire to the place.

In 1918 a local lad called John Weldon published The Valley of the Squinting Windows under the name Brinsley MacNamara. Every neighbour recognised themselves. Copies were burned on the main street. His father lost the school. He never came home.

Stories & lore → 02 The castle

Norman tower, eight centuries old.

Hugh de Lacy built it in 1181 for his brother-in-law Gilbert de Nugent. The Nugents stayed for the next seven hundred years. The ruin sits in a field at the edge of the village, no ticket, no fence.

Walks & outings → 03 The road

On the N52, twenty minutes from anywhere.

Mullingar is 20 km south. Kells is 20 km east. Castlepollard is fifteen minutes north. A junction village that has been a junction village since the de Lacys drew the map.

Getting there →

02 / 04

Stories & lore.

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

1918, and the village burned the book

The Valley of the Squinting Windows

John Weldon was the schoolmaster's son at Ballinvalley. He took the pen name Brinsley MacNamara, moved to Dublin, joined the Abbey, and in 1918 published a first novel called The Valley of the Squinting Windows. The fictional village of Garradrimna - its drunks, its informers, its hypocrites, its illegitimate children - was Delvin with the names changed. The book was read aloud on the steps of Clonyn Castle so the whole village could place itself in it. Copies were burned. A libel suit followed and MacNamara was ordered to pay compensation. The bigger casualty was his father James, the principal of the local national school, who was boycotted by parents and eventually had to leave the parish. Brinsley never came back. The novel is still in print. A book fair was held in his honour in Delvin in 2010. The wound is old. It is not entirely closed.

Nugent's tower, 1181

Delvin Castle

The four-towered ruin in the field beside the village is the original castle, built in 1181 by Hugh de Lacy - the first Norman lord of Meath - for his brother-in-law Gilbert de Nugent. It is one of the oldest stone castles in the midlands. The Nugents held it, more or less, for the next seven centuries, becoming Earls of Westmeath in 1621 and Catholic stalwarts through the worst of the penal years. The tower is roofless and the walls are gapped, but the shape of the keep is still legible. Climb the gate carefully. It is not a managed site.

Burned, rebuilt, burned again

Clonyn Castle, twice over

Up the hill from the village stands Clonyn Castle - also called the new Delvin Castle. The first version was thrown up by Richard Nugent, 1st Earl of Westmeath, in 1639. When Cromwell's army marched on Meath the Earl burned his own house rather than let it fall, and ran for Galway. His grandson rebuilt it, the family lived there until 1860, and Lord and Lady Greville replaced the lot with the Victorian baronial castle visible from the road today, completed in 1876. After the Second World War it was briefly home to a group of Jewish child Holocaust survivors known as the Clonyn Castle Boys. It is private property. Look from the road and let it be.

Seven hundred years of the same family

The Nugents

Few Irish villages can name the family that has stood over them for the entire span of recorded history. Delvin can. The Nugents arrived with the Normans in 1181, became barons of Delvin, then earls of Westmeath, kept their faith through the Reformation, kept their land through the penal laws, and produced soldiers, scholars and at least one cardinal. The barony of Delvin still exists on the map. The senior line eventually faded into other titles, but the name Nugent is on more headstones in this parish than any other. The story of Delvin is more or less the story of one family running out of money slowly.

03 / 04

Things to do outside.

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

Delvin Castle ruin Twelfth-century Norman tower, four corner turrets, no signage, no admission. In a field at the edge of the village. Mind the cattle.

5 min walk from main streetdistance

20 min on sitetime

Clonyn Castle from the road The Victorian baronial castle of 1876 sits up the hill in private grounds. Pull in on the verge for the view. Do not enter.

Drive-bydistance

10 mintime

St Mary's ruin, Main Street The dramatic shell of the former Church of Ireland church on the main street, built around a 16th-century belfry. Officially closed; visible from the road; a fine ruin in evening light.

On the streetdistance

15 mintime

Church of St Livinius, Killulagh The Catholic parish church on a hill outside the village, designed by George Ashlin and finished in the 1890s. Dedicated to a local saint whose cult goes back to the seventh century.

2 km westdistance

Half an hourtime