The picturesque grounds of Ballinlough Castle in
County Westmeath will be the venue for the Irish National
Country Fair, Ireland's top quality country sports
weekend.
The castle is a hidden gem in the Irish countryside and
has been home to the same family for almost 400 years. The
Nugent family still live in Ballinlough Castle where Nick
and Alice Nugent and their two children enjoy the idyllic
setting of this family seat which dates from the early
seventeenth century.
The main part of the castle was built around that date with
the O'Reilly coat of arms, the family's original name, over
the front door indicating a date of 1614.
The newer wing at Ballinlough was added by Sir Hugh
O'Reilly in about 1790 and is probably attributable to the
amateur, Thomas Wogan Browne, also responsible for Malahide
Castle, the home of Sir Hugh O'Reilly's sister, Margaret.
The ground floor contains a large drawing room and dining
room with four first-floor bedrooms approached by a vaulted
corridor above. The spacious interiors have what may be the
tallest windows in a private house of this period,
overlooking the woods and lake. The chimneypiece in the
drawing room is identical to a Wyatt chimneypiece at
Curraghmore, Co. Waterford.
