Moydrum Castle
Moydrum Castle is a ruined castle situated in the locality of Moydrum (Maigh Droma in Irish), outside the town of Athlone, County Westmeath, Ireland.
The lands of Moydrum were granted to the Handcock family, originally from Devon in England, during the Cromwellian plantations of Ireland in the 17th century. From then on the family remained one of the most prominent landowning dynasties and landlords in the area.
Moving forward several generations, head of family William Handcock served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in Grattan's Parliament, representing Athlone until the parliament’s dissolution following the Acts of Union 1800 with the United Kingdom. Handcock had originally been an opponent of the Act, but was promised a peerage should he vote in favour of it. He duly succumbed and finally, in 1812, Handcock was created 1st Baron Castlemaine.
The Baron decided to create an appropriate stately home on his lands at Moydrum, and therefore asked architect Richard Morrison to remodel and enlarge an existing house belonging to the family there. The resulting gothic-revivalist castle was completed in 1814 and was described as a "handsome residence" in Samuel Lewis' 1837 Topographical Dictionary Of Ireland, "a solid castellated mansion with square turrets at each angle, beautifully situated by a small lake, and surrounded by an extensive and richly wooded demesne".
By the 1880s, and the time of the 4th Baron, the Barony of Moydrum comprised 11,444 acres (46.3 km2).
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