Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in the NW centre of a bawn (CL010-027001-) on a slight rise in semi-karst land with some tree and bush cover, damp marshy land immediately to the W and NW, and wide views in most directions. Hachured as a mound on the 1897 OS 25-inch plan and the 1920 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. Labelled ‘Garrison castle’ on Robinson’s (1977) map. This tower house was probably built after 1574 and may have had some distinctive military function under the O’Loughlin family who ruled this part of the Burren (Ua Cróinín and Breen 1997). In 1617 Owney O’Loughlin owned Fahee castle, as well as Glencolumbkille castle (CL010-040002-), Muckinish castle (CL003-002----) and other lands in the region. Upon O’Loughlin’s death the castle was inherited by his cousins Margaret MacDermot and Mary O’Brien. After the 1641 rebellion it was confiscated by the British and given to John Drew and Lady Blake. The latest documentary evidence of the castle being occupied dates to 1659, when its tenants were Loughlin O’Hehir and Geoffrey Blake. The tower house was described as ‘nearly crumbled to a heap of rubbish’ in the OS Letters of 1839 (Comber 1997, 36-7). These letters also recorded a local tradition that this castle ‘was not a regular castle but rather a large house or garrison’ (Comber 1997, 37).

Ua Cróinín and Breen (1996, 8) recorded the remains of this tower house as a subcircular mound of rubble (diam. 10m; H c. 4m) in which were visible large chunks of mortared masonry. At the top of the mound were the only upstanding remains of the tower house: part of the NE corner, incorporating a section of the spiral stairwell (H 1.8m) on its inner face. An inspection of the tower house in 1999 found it unaltered in the interim.

The following items have been uploaded:
CL010-027002-_01.pds Document with details from Risteárd Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen, The Castles and Tower-houses of Co. Clare (unpublished report).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.
CL010-027002-_01.jpg View from WSW
CL010-027002-_02.jpg Stairwell from W

Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Conn Herriott

Date of upload: 5 April 2023

References

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

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.