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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Clonroad More, County Clare, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Clonroad More, County Clare, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Clonroad More
County
Clare
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
OBriens Castle (Site of) (1921)
Coordinates
52.84795, -8.97199
SMR number
CL033-085001-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

On low-lying ground on the S bank of the River Fergus. The main residence of the O’Brien kings of Thomond from the 13th to the 16th centuries began with an earthen stronghold (CL033-085006-) built by Conchobar Ó Briain c. AD 1267. An earlier earthen fortification (CL033-085005-) had been built on the N bank of the river in AD c. 1210 by Donnachad Cairprech Ó Briain. A tower house was built on the site probably c. 1470 (Ó Dálaigh 1987, 28) and by 1558 a large mansion (CL033-085002-) had been attached. The castle was besieged in 1600 and there is a record of the ‘great ould house’ being covered with slate or shingle in 1658. A sketch by Thomas Dineley in 1681 shows a large residence with a tower house, a six-bay mansion and a bawn surrounded by a curtain wall with an arched opening defended by a machicolation. No remains are visible on the ground although remnants were noted in the OS Letters in 1839 as being ‘indistinctly traceable’. Two adjacent bridges across the river (CL033-085003- and CL033-085004-) are known from the same 1681 sketch. A stone causeway linked the castle to the Franciscan Friary (CL033-082001-) 1km to the W in the centre of the town. In the 19th century a brewery and ‘Clonroad House’ were built on part of the same site. (Ó Dálaigh 2012, 12, 15)

Compiled by: Mary Tunney

See attached 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.

Date of upload: 11 December 2014

References

Ó Dálaigh, B. 2012 Irish Historic Towns Atlas, No. 25. Ennis. Royal Irish Academy. Dublin.

Ó Dálaigh, B.. 1987 History of an O'Brien stronghold: Clonroad c. 1210-1626. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 29, 16-31.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Castle - tower house in Clare All County Clare records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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