placenamesArcherstown
Baile an Airsirigh
Archerstown’s former lakeside house connects the locality with estate management and the history of organised hunting in Westmeath. Although the house has disappeared, documentary records preserve its occupants, setting and later transfer to the Land Commission.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Baile an Airsirigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Archerstown · English · main form
Place & story
A house beside the lough
Archerstown House stood on the shore of Archerstown Lough. The University of Galway’s Landed Estates record identifies it on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map, with a police barrack beside its entrance. John Maher lived there in 1814, followed by Robert Smyth in 1837. By Griffith’s Valuation, published in 1854, Samuel Arthur Reynell held the house from Smyth, with the building valued at fifty pounds. Reynell combined residence here with his work as agent to the Marquess of Westmeath. [2]
A place in hunting history
Westmeath Library’s history of the county hunt credits Sam Reynell, a son of Richard Reynell of Killynon, with developing a deliberately bred pack of hounds at Clonderlever and Archerstown. It places the establishment of the Westmeath Foxhounds in 1835, building on earlier local packs such as the Sonna Harriers. Archerstown was therefore part of a wider network of kennels and country houses associated with organised hunting, rather than an isolated sporting venue. [3]
Sale and demolition
The Reynell family remained at Archerstown House until the 1940s, when the property was sold. Landed Estates records its acquisition by the Land Commission in the 1960s and subsequent demolition. The house also appears on the later twenty-five-inch Ordnance Survey map, leaving a cartographic record of a substantial building that no longer survives. Its history illustrates the changing use of a lakeside estate across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Westmeath
- Barony
- Delvin
- Civil parish
- Delvin
- Within
- Archerstown
- Coordinates
- 53.64954, -7.12278 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413751 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Archerstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Archerstown House: property record 5951 · University of Galway, Landed Estates
- The Westmeath Hunt: Earliest Records of Hunting · Westmeath County Library, Ask About Ireland
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.