County Westmeath

Encyclopedia : C : CO : COU : County Westmeath

County Westmeath (Contae na hIarmhí in Irish) is a county situated in the Irish Midlands, in the western part of the province of Leinster. Area: 1,764 km². The county was once part of the ancient province of Meath and later of County Meath, this association was ended in 1543 when County Westmeath was created.

Athlone (population 15,936) on the River Shannon, Westmeath's western boundary, is the largest town, while Mullingar (population 15,621) is the county's administrative centre.

The county is famous for its cattle, lakes such as Lough Owel, pewter such as Mullingar Pewter, scenery, the canal, the drug company Elán and is rapidly becoming part of the commuter belt of Dublin.

Notable Westmeath people include Michael O'Leary the CEO of Ryanair, Joe Dolan, a popular singer; Donie Cassidy, a well-known businessman and TD; and Mary O'Rourke, a senator and former Government minister.

Westmeath has a reasonable reputation in GAA. Their main achievements were winning the Leinster Senior Gaelic Football Championship, or Delaney Cup, in 2004, and winning the Christy Ring Cup in hurling in 2005.

Towns and villages in Westmeath

The main towns in County Westmeath are shown on this map of the county.

Westmeath is bordered by the counties of Cavan, Longford, Meath, Offaly and Roscommon.

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.