A new, nicely maintained, town (6)

I believe the answer is:

antrim

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'maintained town' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.

'a new nicely' is the wordplay.
'new' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament).
'nicely' becomes 'trim' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'a'+'n'+'trim'='ANTRIM'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for antrim that I've seen before include "town in Ireland" , "Giant's Causeway county" , "18 down in Ulster" , "County of Northern Ireland" , "County in Ireland's north-east" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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