Annual vents such as the Oldcastle Show and Le Chelie are some of the highlights of the year.

The Show Hall in Oldcastle is located near the church.

It is generally believed that Shakespeare originally named Falstaff " John Oldcastle ", and that Lord Cobham, a descendant of the historical John Oldcastle, complained, forcing Shakespeare to change the name.

In the published version of Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff's name is always unmetrical, suggesting a name change after the original composition ; Prince Hal refers to Falstaff as " my old lad of the castle " in the first act of the play ; the epilogue to Henry IV, Part II, moreover, explicitly disavows any connection between Falstaff and Oldcastle, a dancer declaring: "... where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already ' a be killed with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man ".

In addition to the anonymous The Famous Victories of Henry V, in which Oldcastle is Henry V's companion, Oldcastle's history is described in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, Shakespeare's usual source for his histories.

It is not clear, however, if Shakespeare characterized Falstaff as he did for dramatic purposes, or because of a specific desire to satirize Oldcastle or the Cobhams.

If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a ' be killed with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.

There is little indication that the Lollard Knights were specifically known as such during their lifetimes ; they were men of discretion, and unlike Sir John Oldcastle years later, rarely gave any hint of open rebellion.

There is an indication that Falstaff in Merry Wives was originally called Sir John Oldcastle, as was true of Falstaff in the Henry IV plays.

Bennington is also home to the Oldcastle Theatre Company, a small professional theatre with a special interest in encouraging New England plays.

Although the character is called Falstaff in all surviving texts of the play, there is abundant external and internal evidence that he was originally called Oldcastle.

" In III, ii, 25-6 of the same play, Falstaff is said to have been a " page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk "— which was true of the historical Oldcastle.

Finally, there is the blatant disclaimer at the close of Henry IV, Part 2 that discriminates between the two figures: " for Oldcastle died martyr, and this is not the man " ( Epilogue, 29 – 32 ).

There is even a hint that Falstaff was originally Oldcastle in The Merry Wives of Windsor too.

When the First Folio and quarto texts of that play are compared, it appears that the joke in V, v, 85 – 90 is that Oldcastle / Falstaff incriminates himself by calling out the first letter of his name, " O, O, O !," when his fingertips are singed with candles — which of course works for " Oldcastle " but not " Falstaff.

The name change and the Epilogue disclaimer were required, it is generally thought, because of political pressure: the historical Oldcastle was not only a Protestant martyr, but a nobleman with powerful living descendants in Elizabethan England.

Oldcastle is first mentioned in two separate documents in 1400, first as a plaintiff in a suit regarding the advowson of Almely church, and again as serving as a knight under Lord Grey of Codnor in a military expedition to Scotland.

When Shakespeare adapted that play in Henry IV, Part 1, Oldcastle still appeared ; but when the play was printed in 1598 Falstaff's name was substituted, in deference, as it is said, to the then Lord Cobham.

In Henry IV, Part 2 an epilogue emphasises that Falstaff is not Oldcastle: " Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a ' be killed with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.

In the next few years Oldcastle held notable positions in the Welsh campaigns of King Henry IV of England against Owain Glyndŵr, including captaincy first over Builth Castle in Brecknockshire and then over Kidwelly.

In November 1997 McKevitt and other IRA dissidents held a meeting in a farmhouse in Oldcastle, County Meath, and a new organisation styling itself Óglaigh na hÉireann was formed.

Colonel Richard Kirby Ridgeway VC CB ( 18 August 1848 – 11 October 1924 ) was born in Oldcastle, County Meath and was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

The Gilson National School is said by the local Chamber of Commerce to be the " Gem in the Crown of Oldcastle's architecture " The Gilson National School's trust and building owe their existence to the generosity of Laurence Gilson, a native of Oldcastle Parish.

Gilson donated money to the town of Oldcastle in 1810 for the establishment of a multi-faith school.

Shakespeare's desire to burlesque a hero of early English Protestantism could indicate Catholic sympathies, but Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham was sufficiently sympathetic to Catholicism that in 1603, he was imprisoned as part of the Main Plot to place Arbella Stuart on the English throne, so if Shakespeare wished to use Oldcastle to embarrass the Cobhams, he seems unlikely to have done so on religious grounds.

The Tudors otherwise rejected or suppressed other religious notions, whether for the Pope's award of Fidei Defensor or to prevent them from being in the hands of the common laity, who might be swayed by cells of foreign Protestants, with whom they had conversation as Marian exiles, pursuing a strategy of containment which the Lancastrians had done ( after being vilified by Wat Tyler ), even though the phenomenon of " Lollard knights " ( like John Oldcastle ) had become almost a national sensation all on its own.

He wrote additional essays signed " John Trot " that appeared in the Craftsman in 1728, and in 1730 followed Remarks on the History of England by Humphrey Oldcastle, attacking Walpole's policy.

* Sir John Falstaff – a cowardly fat knight who befriends Prince Hal ; a fictional character, he was originally called " Oldcastle " and distantly based on Sir John Oldcastle.

Henry IV, Part 1 caused controversy on its first performances in 1597, because the comic character now known as " Falstaff " was originally named " Oldcastle " and was based on John Oldcastle, a famous Protestant martyr with powerful living descendants in England.

Lollardy had many supporters in Herefordshire, and Oldcastle himself had adopted Lollard opinions before 1410, when the churches on his wife's estates in Kent were laid under interdict for unlicensed preaching.

Oldcastle refused to obey the archbishop's repeated citations, and it was only under a Royal Writ that he at last appeared before the ecclesiastical court on 23 September.

There have been many lives of Oldcastle, mainly based on The Actes and Monuments of John Foxe, who in his turn followed the Briefe Chronycle of John Bale, first published in 1544.

Navan was a railway crossroads, with the GNR ( I ) line from Drogheda to Oldcastle and the MGWR line from Kingscourt to Clonsilla ( on the Dublin to Sligo line ) passing through the town, connecting at Navan Junction.

A spur to Tara Mines on the Navan to Oldcastle trackbed was reinstated in 1977.

* Just outside the town of Kells on the road to Oldcastle is the hill of Lloyd, named after Thomas Lloyd of Enniskillen, who camped a large Williamite army here during the wars of 1688-91 against the Jacobites.

* The original Kells railway station serviced a line between Oldcastle and Drogheda via Navan and opened on 11 July 1853, closed for passenger traffic on 14 April 1958 and finally closed to all traffic on 1 April 1963.

* Sir John Oldcastle was originally published in 1600, attributed on the title page to " William Shakespeare " ( STC 18796 ).

The genesis of Sir John Oldcastle is crucially linked to the fact that when Shakespeare's Henry IV plays premiered on stage in 1597 – 98, the character Sir John Falstaff was called Sir John Oldcastle.

The later scenes are devoted to Rochester's pursuit of Oldcastle and his wife, and their escapes ; the play ends on a temporary positive note, with the Oldcastles evading imprisonment.

In 2010, a Head shop, since closed, opened up in Oldcastle on the Mountnugent road, across from the Oldcastle House Hotel.

Kemp practised as an ecclesiastical lawyer, was an assessor at the trial of Oldcastle, and in 1415 was made dean of the Court of Arches but did not do a good job as dean.

In the convocation which met in March 1413, shortly before the death of Henry IV, Oldcastle was at once accused of heresy.

When Oldcastle fled from Windsor Castle to his own castle at Cowling ( now Cooling ), Henry at last consented to a prosecution.

Oldcastle now put himself at the head of a widespread Lollard conspiracy, which assumed a definite political character.

On September 15, Raven lost the NWA Title to Jeff Jarrett in Oldcastle, Ontario, Canada, at a special event of Border City Wrestling.

" Finally, there is the blatant disclaimer at the close of Henry IV, Part 2 that disassociates the two figures: " for Oldcastle died martyr, and this is not the man " ( Epilogue, 29-32 ).

Curiously, this effort to redeem the Oldcastle name was at best only partially successful ; allusions to the Falstaff character under the name of Oldcastle continued to appear in succeeding years — in Nathan Field's play Amends for Ladies ( 1618 ) and in the anonymous pamphlets The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary ( 1604 ) and The Wandering Jew ( c. 1628 ), among other works.

* Sir John Oldcastle eText at Project Gutenberg

Richard's older brother Anthony settled in Oldcastle in County Meath at about the same time that Richard and his wife, Margaret Keete, came to Mountmellick.

Oldcastle railway station, at the end of a branch line from Navan, opened on 17 March 1863 and for many years provided a source of revenue and income for local farmers as well as other industries in the area by allowing local goods and produce to be transported to the main ports of Ireland for export.

He was Commandant of the POW camp at Oldcastle 1914-15, and was appointed Governor of His Majesty's Convict Prison at Maryborough in 1915, before returning to Oldcastle in 1916.

Captain Johnson died in 1851 at " Oldcastle ", lot 6, conc.

* and the doom of Sir John Oldcastle was sealed at the latter place in 1413.