Howardites
Meteorites of Britain and Ireland · Republic of Ireland

The Pettiswood meteorite

Ireland's oldest recorded fall: a small stone that came down with a peal of thunder in a Westmeath meadow.

Key facts

Fell
1779
Where
near Mullingar, County Westmeath
Type
Stone, never classified
Mass
small; nothing survives
Where it is kept
No specimen is known to survive.
Nation today
Republic of Ireland

In 1779 a small stone fell during a loud peal like thunder onto a meadow at Pettiswood in County Westmeath. It broke into pieces as it struck. The fragments were still warm when they were handed to a visiting clergyman, William Bingley, who wrote about them years later.

Bingley did not believe the stone had come from the sky. Writing in the 1790s, before the scientific world had changed its mind, he suggested it was sand cemented together by lightning. Today the warm fragments, the noise and the timing are seen as strong signs of a real meteorite, and the fall is listed in the official catalogue.

No piece is known to survive, so Pettiswood is unclassified. It is still important as the earliest recorded meteorite fall in Ireland, more than thirty years before the great Limerick shower.

Did you know?

Did you know?

The witness who wrote about Pettiswood argued that it was not a meteorite, which was the normal scientific view at the time.

Did you know?

Pettiswood fell sixteen years before Wold Cottage.

Find out more

Nearest other British and Irish meteorites