Dunboyne

A Meath town 15 km from Dublin whose population more than doubled between 1996 and 2016 as commuters moved in. Between 1958 and 1967 its public roads made up a four-mile triangular motor racing circuit, with the start and finish line in the middle of the village. The 1970s television series The Riordans was filmed here, and Pelé came in 2009 to open the grounds of Dunboyne AFC.

Dunboyne Castle began as a tower house built as a seat for a branch of the Butlers, the Lords Dunboyne. It was destroyed in the Cromwellian invasion, and a Georgian country house went up on the property in the mid-18th century. Many local men fought on both sides in the 1798 Rebellion. In April 1921, during the War of Independence, the town became headquarters of the IRA's 1st Eastern Division under Seán Boylan, a unit of nine brigades stretching from Fingal and Drogheda to Mullingar and south Kildare.

The castle house later passed to the Mangan family, and Simon Mangan, HM Lieutenant for Meath in the 1890s and 1900s, lived there. It was sold in 1950 and became a convent; the Sisters of the Good Shepherd opened the Árd Mhuire mother and baby home there in 1955, and it closed in 1991. Part of the building was taken down and the rest became a hotel in 2006. The original railway station opened on 29 August 1862 and closed on 1 April 1963, and rail returned when the Clonsilla line was reopened under Transport 21.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Dunboyne ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Taghadoe · round tower · 12 km
• Clondalkin · round tower · 12 km
• Maynooth Castle · castle · 9 km
• Ashtown Castle · castle · 11 km
• Reeves Castle · castle · 14 km
• Drimnagh Castle · castle · 14 km
• Killeen Castle, Dunsany · castle · 15 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Hill of Tara · Seat of the High Kings, with the Lia Fáil that cried out under a rightful king — and, in 1899, holes dug by British Israelites hunting the Ark of the Covenant.
• Clontarf · Good Friday 1014: Brian Boru's forces break Leinster and Dublin's Vikings — and Brian is killed praying in his tent. Now a quiet seafront suburb.
• Tara — the Lia Fáil · The Stone of Destiny, one of four treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which roared beneath the foot of every rightful king of Ireland.
• Gleann na Smól — Oisín returns · After 300 years in Tír na nÓg, Oisín came home, touched the ground helping men lift a stone, and aged in an instant — to tell Patrick the tales of the Fianna.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.