escribed as the ‘Heart of Irish Civilization”, the origins of County Meath can be traced back some 5000 years, to what has been said is the oldest building in the world: a Neolithic tomb at Newgrange, which was built several thousand years before the pyramids of Giza and 500 years before Stonehenge in England.

At the opposite end of Meath, the village of Oldcastle is best known as being the birthplace of St. Oliver Plunkett, the 17th Century Archbishop of Armagh who was convicted of treason then hanged, drawn and quartered in the Tower of London after refusing to submit to the fiercely anti-catholic laws of his time.

Somewhat more recently [In 2001 to be more precise], Matt Connell and partners Eugene Rooney and Paddy Reilly founded the Oldcastle Pub and named it after Matt's historic hometown, creating a little piece of ancient Meath in Manhattan and, it could be said, the heart of Irish civilization in midtown.

[Home & Away - July 5th, 2004 by Barbara McCormick]