Saturday morning we were in Mullingar. After coffee and fruit scones in Gallery 29 we had a bit of time to kill before heading to an appointment in the afternoon. My wife went for a mooch around the shops and I looked for interesting shots to take with my camera as I wandered around.
It was a dull morning, overcast really, and since many of the more prominent buildings in Mullingar have granite facing I decided to try black and white photos. The first photo captures one of my favourite pubs in Mullingar, Canton Casey’s, along with a statue of the late Joe Dolan. My favourite photo of the batch is the man reading the paper with one of the friars sneaking a peek. If only the bollard wasn’t there!
I like Mullingar. It’s a market town with a lot to offer. It has plenty of shops, pubs and amenities, including the Royal Canal and Loughs Ennell, Owel and Derravaragh nearby. According to legend Lough Derravaragh is where the Children of Lir spent 300 years after being turned into swans.
A few years ago I thought it would be cool to try to walk from Maynooth to a point close to Mullingar along the Royal Canal. I did it, but it wasn’t easy. Not sure I’d want to do it again as I found the last 5Km very tough.
If you feel like discovering Mullingar and Westmeath as a tourist then the Discover Ireland website is a good place to start. On Sunday September 27th there is a Discover Mullingar day in association with Failte Ireland and Waterways Ireland. While I was there I learned that Mullingar has recently been declared a cycling hub town with three cycling routes outlined, all starting from the railway station. The routes are described in this map (PDF 1.26MB). The distances involved are long enough, 30Km, 49Km and 38Km based on the map, and it looks like you could easily (assuming you had the energy) join routes 1 and 3 and cycle around both Lough Owel and Lough Ennell in a day!
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