Maynooth (/məˈnuːθ/; Irish: Maigh Nuad) is a university town in north County Kildare, Ireland.

Maynooth is also the seat of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference[2] and holds the headquarters of Ireland's largest development charity, Trócaire.

Maynooth was a long-term centre for the Geraldine or FitzGerald family, which dominated Irish affairs during the Anglo-Norman and Tudor periods.

[citation needed] From 1932 to 1937, the town was the unofficial home to the King's representative in Ireland, Governor General Domhnall Ua Buachalla, who declined to take up official residence in the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, and whose family operated a hardware store in the town until 2005.

It has, at either end of the main street, Maynooth Castle and Carton House, two former seats of the Dukes of Leinster.

There are three old monastic settlements in the vicinity of Maynooth, including Laraghbryan and its cemetery, Taghadoe and its Round Tower and Grangewilliam (Donaghmore).

[9] Measurement can be difficult as much of the population is transient – students at Maynooth University (above 12,000) or St. Patrick's College, or temporary employees at the nearby Intel and Hewlett Packard Enterprise facilities (both located in Leixlip).

The town is the main retail and service centre for North Kildare and South Meath, with several supermarkets as well as a wide variety of non-chain stores.

In October 2005, Dunnes Stores opened a major shopping centre off the town's main street, Manor Mills.

[14] When the Royal Canal was designed in 1790, with a planned length of 175 km, with 76 locks, 65 aqueducts and 85 bridges, it was intended to pass north of the town of Maynooth.

It is now mostly used mostly for leisure and drainage purposes but historically was used for passengers and freight (grain, potatoes, coal and coke, manure, turf, bricks, stone, sand, timber, and general merchandise) and Maynooth's canal harbour provided a stopping point before Dublin.

The town is the terminus of most Iarnród Éireann Western Commuter trains, as well as being served by the Dublin-Sligo InterCity service.

[citation needed] Maynooth GAA is the local Gaelic Athletic Association club and has competed in the senior football championship in Kildare since 2009.

[26] North Kildare RFC is the local rugby club and is situated about 3 km from Maynooth on the Kilcock road.

Maynooth native Bob Casey (born 1978) was a professional rugby player and a senior Irish international.

This club runs out of Maynooth University, and from January to April culminating in a charity cycle to Galway and back over a weekend.

[31] After many years operating out of the Maynooth Post Primary school they restored and redeveloped the Geraldine Hall,[32] a protected building, as their Den in 2013.