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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Fomerla, County Clare, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Fomerla, 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
Fomerla
County
Clare
Country
Ireland
Latest-edition OS map
Fomerla Castle (in Ruins) (1921)
Coordinates
52.86040, -8.81852
SMR number
CL034-041----

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

Built by Rory, son of Shane, son of Mahon MacNamara. In 1570 it was owned by Turlough O'Brien, a younger brother of Conor, third Earl of Thomond. Conor was hanged in Galway after 1581, but his son Donagh became the fourth Earl, and Donagh made Formerla over to a Roland Delahoyde in 1585, which was renewed in 1613. In the 1640s Oliver Delahoyde was dispossessed and a John Carroll received Formerla. In 1659 Cnarlse and Donagh Carthy were tenants at Formerla an in the Moland survey of 1703 it is described as a castle out of repair, the remains of an old house, and an orchard and six cabins.

Situated at the highest point of a low hillock in a low-lying landscape, and overgrown. One section of the SW wall (L 2.5m NW-SE; H 2.9m; T 1.3m) contains part of an embrasure at the NW end. 4m to the NE are the grassed-covered remains of the NE wall are visible (L 6m), and a collapsed piece of masonry has traces of a window splay and a stepped embrasure of dressed stonework.

Compiled by: Leo Morahan and Michael Moore

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

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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