Knockdrin is an area north of Mullingar, in County Westmeath, Ireland. It is the home of the Westmeath Hunt, and its most notable building is Knockdrin Castle. The R394 regional road, the main Mullingar to Castlepollard route, runs through the area.
Etymology
The name Knockdrin reputedly derives from a hill on the estate. This is also reflected to Lough Drin, a small lake on the estate. The Irish name for the locality is Muine Liath, which means 'grey thicket'. Muine Liath is written in English as Monilea.
Knockdrin Castle
Knockdrin Castle is, according to The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster, mainly an early 19th-century neo-Gothic structure. The current castle was purportedly designed by Richard Morrison, and was built on the site of High Park, the original 18th-century mansion that formerly stood there. The castle was constructed for Sir Richard Levinge, 6th Baronet, probably in the 1810s. As of late 2017, the castle was the home of the von Prondzynski family, though listed for sale since November 2017. The current owner, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, was President of Dublin City University from 2000 until mid-2010, and then Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. Prof. von Prondzynski was criticised for failing to declare a shared directorship of the family estate company owning Knockdrin Castle, and while the university applied no significant penalty, he later decided to step down from his post to avoid distracting from the mission of the university.
History
Until the early 18th century, the main residence on the estate was a small Norman castle which was destroyed by fire. The main part of High Park, the previous mansion that stood on the site of the current Knockdrin Castle, may have been built in the early 18th century for Sir Richard Levinge, 1st Baronet, M.P.. The Levinges came to Ireland with the Williamites, in the late 17th century. The first Sir Richard Levinge was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and a member of the Lords Commissioners, who were appointed by the British Crown to settle all the land questions which had arisen in Ireland after the Cromwellian conquest, the Restoration and the Williamite Wars. Levinge took advantage of his position to purchase the Knockdrin Estate from the Tuites, who were the Norman-Irish owners up to that time. At the time the estate was over in size. The present estate is approximately. During the Emergency, the castle was taken over for troop accommodation and was occupied by a company of the 6th Infantry of the Irish Army. The army left in 1945 and handed the castle back to the Levinges. The Levinges owned Knockdrin until 1946, although the last Sir Richard Levinge to live there had by then not been resident there for some time. In that year the estate was sold to Paddy Dunne-Cullinan, who remained there until 1961, when he in turn sold the estate to Hans Freiherr von Prondzynski from Germany.
