Knockdrin () is a townland and electoral division that is 5.6 kilometers northeast of Mullingar, in County Westmeath, Ireland. It is the home of the Westmeath Hunt, and its most notable building is Knockdrin Castle. The R394 regional road, the main Mullingar to Castlepollard route, runs through the area. Etymology The name Knockdrin (Irish: Cnoc Droinne meaning 'hill of Drin') reputedly derives from a hill on the estate. This is also reflected to Lough Drin, a small lake on the estate. The Irish name for the locality is Muine Liath (pronounced Moe in ah lee ah), which means 'grey thicket'. Muine Liath is written in English as Monilea. Knockdrin Castle Knockdrin Castle is, according to The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (published in London in 1993 and better known as the Pevsner Guide to North Leinster), mainly an early 19th-century neo-Gothic structure. The current castle was constructed for Sir Richard Levinge, 6th Baronet (1785-1848), probably in the 1810s. According to a National Inventory survey, parts of a surviving gate structure may be from an "earlier eighteenth century house [that] stood on the site (known as 'High Park')". The National Inventory considers the castle as "one of finest picturesque castellated country houses built in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century ... retains its early character, form and fabric". The summary adds that there are many outbuildings, including an area that "incorporates the remains of a Late Medieval tower house, built c.1550". According to some sources, the castle was designed by Richard Morrison, and was built on the site of High Park, the original 18th-century mansion that formerly stood there. According to the National Inventory, however, Levinge did not accept the two designs proposed by Morrison and that the final plan may have been by James Shiel. Another reliable source also confirms that the structure is credited to James Shiel, "assistant to Francis Johnston, one of Ireland’s best known Gothic Revival architects ... although elements of the front facade have been attributed to Morrison’s design". Up to late 2020, the castle was the home of the von Prondzynski family. The last member of the family to be the owner, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, was President of Dublin City University from 2000 until mid-2010, and then Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Robert Gordon University (RGU), Aberdeen, Scotland. In December 2020 the castle and the greater part of the estate was bought