Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

On a slight rise in a gently undulating plateau, with land sloping to the SW and a shallow ENE–WSW ravine to the N. In rough pasture within a large multiperiod field system (CL009-013001-). Depicted on the 1842 ed. of the OS 6-inch map as a small circular area (diam. c. 15m) defined by a broken line and labelled ‘Site of Ballymurphy Castle’. On the 1897 OS 25-inch plan it is shown as a hachured mound. Labelled ‘castle site (Ó Lochlainn)’ on Robinson’s map (1977). Referred to as ‘Ballemoroghee’ in 1574, it was the property of the O’Loughlin clan and may have been owned by the Prendergast family in 1601 (Ua Cróinín and Breen 1997). By 1619 it was in the possession of the O’Briens (ibid.). The castle went through several owners and occupants in the late eighteenth century and appears to have fallen into disrepair in around 1781 (ibid.). By 1839, the OS Letters recorded that only the foundations were visible (Comber 1997, 61). These were bulldozed away in 1983 (Sheehan 1982, 47). No visible remains of this castle survive.

The following item has been uploaded:
CL009-013004-_01.pdf Details from Risteárd Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen, The Castles and Tower-houses of Co. Clare (unpublished report). Uploaded courtesy of R. Ua Cróinín and M. Breen.

Date of upload: 27 October 2021

References

Robinson, T. 1977 (revised 1999) The Burren: a two-inch map of the uplands of north-west Clare. Map scale 1:31680. Roundstone: Folding Landscapes.

Comber, M. (ed.) 1997 The antiquities of County Clare: John O’Donovan and Eugene Curry: Ordnance Survey Letters 1839. Clasp Press. Ennis.

Ua Cróinín, R. and Breen, M. 1997 The castles and tower-houses of Co. Clare, 6 vols. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Dublin.

Sheehan, J. 1982 The early historic church-sites of North Clare. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 24, 29-47.