Dysart
An Díseart

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 03 / 03

An Díseart · Co. Westmeath

A hermit's name on a crossroads above Lough Ennell.

Dysart in Westmeath is a small place with an old name. An Díseart in Irish — from díseart, the same Latin desertum that gives English its desert. In early Christian Ireland a díseart was a hermitage, a place a monk withdrew to. There are dozens of Dysarts and Diserts on the map of Ireland for that reason. Whatever holy man pulled off the road here in the seventh or eighth century to pray on his own is long gone, and so is whatever cell or oratory he built. The name is the last thing standing.

What is here now is a crossroads village on the R391, eight kilometres south-west of Mullingar and a couple of kilometres back from the eastern shore of Lough Ennell. A chapel, a school, two pubs, a handful of houses. There is no museum, no big house, no marked monastic ruin to walk up to. Most visitors who pass through are headed for the lake — for the fishing, for Belvedere House on the south shore, for Lilliput across the water where Jonathan Swift stayed with the Rochforts and borrowed the placename for the small people in Gulliver's Travels. Use Dysart as a pin on the map for that country, not as a destination on its own.

Population

Well under 200

Walk score

Pub, chapel and school in three minutes

Founded

Name from díseart — an early Christian hermitage

Coords

53.4500° N, 7.4500° W

01 / 03

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

Díseart — a hermit's cell.

An Díseart comes from the Latin desertum, the same root as desert. In early Christian Ireland a díseart was a place a monk went to be alone with God. The name on the road sign is the only thing left of that.

Stories & lore → 02 The lake

Lough Ennell, just down the road.

Dysart sits a couple of kilometres back from the eastern shore of Lough Ennell. The lake is what brings anyone out this way — for the fishing, for Belvedere House on the far shore, for the Jonathan Swift connection at Lilliput, where Swift stayed and where the miniature people in Gulliver's Travels got their name.

Stories & lore → 03 The village

A chapel, a school, a village pub.

That is the centre, more or less. A nineteenth-century Catholic chapel, a national school, a village pub and a few houses around a junction on the R391. Mullingar is eight kilometres up the road for everything else.

Stories & lore →

02 / 03

Stories & lore.

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

The hermitage in the name

An Díseart

Díseart is one of the oldest place-elements in Ireland — a hermitage or hermit's retreat, taken from the Latin desertum, a solitary place. It marks somewhere an early Christian monk went to live alone or with a small handful of companions, away from the bigger monastic settlements of the country. There are Dysarts and Diserts scattered across the island, and most of them, like this one, have lost any visible trace of the original cell. The name endures on the road sign and on the parish; the actual hermitage is somewhere under the fields.

Jonathan Swift on Lough Ennell

Lilliput across the water

Jonathan Swift was a regular guest of the Rochforts at the south end of Lough Ennell in the 1720s, at a spot the family called Lilliput. The story local to the lake — and not seriously contested — is that Swift took the name with him when he sat down to write Gulliver's Travels, and turned it into the kingdom of tiny people. The Lilliput shore is across the water from Dysart, signposted now as the Lilliput Adventure Centre. If you are in Dysart and have an hour, the drive around to Lilliput and back along the lake is the local outing.

Getting there.

By car

On the R391, eight kilometres south-west of Mullingar. From the M6 motorway come off at Rochfortbridge (junction 4) and head north on local roads — about fifteen minutes. Mullingar is the nearest town for fuel, food and shopping.

By bus

No regular village service. Mullingar is the nearest bus stop with Dublin and Athlone connections.

By train

Nearest station is Mullingar (15 minutes by car) on the Dublin–Sligo line.

By air

Dublin Airport is around 90 minutes by car via the M4/M6.