Among distinguished house guests at Mullingar in the early decades were Emily Eden (see below). Mullingar was expanded, changed hands several times and by the early 20th century had become the Mullingar Estate Hotel. During World War II, Mullingar was leased by the army to house the overflow of convalescing soldiers from the sanatorium, given the huge increase in war-related injuries. The hotel was bursting at the seams, as a number of British civilian evacuees from Burma, the Andamans, Manipur & Nagaland, which were occupied by Japanese forces, were also housed in Mullingar before being shipped out elsewhere. Mullingar finally fell into disuse after 1947 when Britons began to leave India, with the army already having vacated it after the postwar demobilization of 1945–46. The building soon fell into disrepair, occupied largely if not entirely by squatters (see below). A number of the families now living in Mullingar are Tibetan. Prayer flags flutter in the wind every day, and Losar celebrations are held in the courtyard every year.