Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

On top of a steep-sided rocky outcrop, c. 100m N of the Sullane River, and c. 250m W of Carrigaphooca stone circle. This five-storey rectangular tower house (10.7m E-W; 9.3m N-S) was repaired by the Office of Public Works in recent years. This was the castle of the Mac Carthys of Drishane (Smith 1750, vol. 1, 182; Butler 1917, 54; Lee 1910, 130-1), reputedly built by Donal Mac Carthy in 1436 (Healy 1988, 27-9); it was attacked and taken by another MacCarthy, together with O'Sullivan Beare in 1602 (Ó Murchadha 1993, 223).

It is entered through a ground-floor door in the N wall, now approached by a modern flight of steps. A short lobby gives access straight through to the ground-floor chamber, and to the E to the landing at the foot of straight mural stairs rising in the E wall to the SE corner of tower, from which they rise as spiral to the 4th-floor level. The ground-floor chamber (6.5m E-W; 5.4m N-S) is lit by similar off-centre windows in the E, S and W walls: the inner part of the embrasure is square-set and covered by a segmental vault; the outer part is smaller and shorter, covered by lintels; each has a single square-headed light. The first-floor chamber is entered from the mural stairs by a door in the middle of the E wall. Similar windows to those on the ground floor are in the centre of the N and S walls; the window in the W wall has a similar plan but is entirely roofed by lintels. There is a door in the N side of this window's embrasure leading into a mural chamber (access to which was not gained on inspection).

The second-floor chamber is entered from the mural stairs by a door at the S end of the E wall; it is lit by central windows in the E, N and W walls; the W window is similar to those on the ground floor; the E window is also similar but lintelled, the door in the N side of the embrasure leads into a mural chamber (access to which was not gained on inspection). The N window is splayed and lintelled with a single flat-headed light.
At the 3rd-floor level from the spiral stairs a door gives access to a lintelled mural chamber (4.55m E-W; 1.05m N-S) in the S wall of the tower, with a garderobe opening at the W end; the door in the N wall of this chamber gives access to the main 3rd-floor chamber. The latter is attic under pointed vault (axis E-W), and is lit by a splayed and lintelled window in the W wall with a single flat-headed light, and by a much-repaired window in the E wall.

The top of the spiral stairs gives access to the main 4th-floor chamber (7.4m E-W; 6.4m N-S), which was covered with a stone-flagged floor by the OPW. It is lit by windows with square-set embrasures covered by flat vaults in the centre of the N, E and S walls, all missing their lights, and by a window in the centre of the W wall with a splayed and lintelled embrasure and a single flat-headed light. The E window has a door in the S side of the embrasure leading into a small lintelled mural chamber (1.2m E-W; 1.75m N-S), and an opposite door in the N side of the embrasure leading to mural stairs which give access to the N wall walk. No battlements survive; the lower part of the bartizans are intact atop the NE and SW corners of the tower, which are each supported by five corbels, one set over the corner.

This is a National Monument in State Ownership (no. 255).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Photographs attached:
CO070-034----_01: Aerial view of the castle from SE.
CO070-034----_02: View of the castle from the SE.
CO070-034----_03: View of the castle from N.
CO070-034----_04: View of the castle from NW.
CO070-034----_05: N façade with doorway in ground floor, from N.

Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

References

Ó Murchadha, D. 1993 Gaelic land tenure in County Cork: Uíbh Laoghaire in the seventeenth century. In P. Ó Flanagan and C.G. Buttimer (eds), Cork: History and Society, 213-48. Dublin. Geography Publications.

Healy, J.N. 1988 The castles of county Cork. Cork. Mercier Press.

Lee, P.G. 1910 Notes on some castles of Mid Cork. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 16, 128-31.

Butler, W.F. 1917 The Cromwellian Confiscation in Muskerry. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 23, 49-60.

Smith, C. 1750 (New Edition 1815) The ancient and present state of the County and City of Cork, 2 vols. Cork. Guy and Co. Ltd.