punished as a result. Following the Conspiracy of Mellifont, the monastery was made subject to Buildwas Abbey. After its dissolution in 1539, the monastery and its extensive lands were granted to the Lambart family. The monastery was subsequently totally demolished and its location was lost. However, the location and full plan of the monastery were uncovered by geophysical survey by Archaeological Projects in 2003 west of the early-medieval graveyard (Hayden 2003). A later parish church was built northeast of the early medieval church and served as the parish church for the reformed Church of Ireland. The church is no longer in use. The tower survives, in a ruinous state. A ford crossing the River Brosna at Kilbeggan was the site, in 972, of a battle between the Danes and the Irish. A skirmish led by the United Irishmen took place in the town, as part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 The Lambart family came to be politically dominant in the midlands. They firmly established themselves in and around Kilbeggan, gradually replacing the Geoghegan Family who were the leaders of Moycashel and the formidable Irish of (West) Meath Alliance who kept the English of (East) Meath in check from the Norman Invasion through the War of the Three Kingdoms, during which they sat as members for the two county Westmeath boroughs, and after The Restoration were restored to some land up to the ultimate defeat of the Irish by William and Mary's forces and allies and the Treaty of Limerick. Sir Oliver Lambart was made Governor of Connaught in 1601 upon the completion of the Tudor Conquest and the last great battle for a Gaelic Ireland at Kinsale, where Bryan Geoghegan and his small band was the great holdout at Dunboy. At payback time Lambart was charged with curbing the intransigent Geoghegans and their allies and was subsequently granted plan for a model Tudor of land and 60 houses. Lambart inaugurated a weekly market in the town in 1606. Kilbeggan became a borough town by charter of James I in 1612. Kilbeggan's market became important to the surrounding agricultural community. The substantial market house still stands in the town, though no longer used for its original purpose. Kilbeggan Distillery, standing on the banks of the River Brosna, commenced whiskey production in 1757. Within the distillery complex, the owner constructed a house and gardens on an island in the river. A