Bawn

The National Monuments Service's description

Bawn area to the W of the rebuilt Castle of Bremore (Brí Mhór/Big Hill), the ancestral home of the Barnewall (De Berneval) family stands 985m to the N of the town of Balbriggan, 280m W of the coastline, with Balbriggan martello tower No. 12 (DU002-004----) 480m to the SSE. The ruins of a manor chapel (DU002-002002-) and graveyard (DU002-002003-) lie immediately S of Bremore castle and bawn.  The chapel is reputed to be the early monastic site of 'Lann Beachaire' possibly founded by St. Molaga in the 7th-century (Walsh 1888, 252; Gwynn & Hadcock 1970, 396).  The present castle has been rebuilt by the Parks Department of Fingal County Council, all of the upper floors from c. 4m upwards have been built in these 20th-century works. In the 1654-56 Civil Survey of Dublin, the castle was described as standing on the lands of ‘Breemore & Newhaven a fishing towne’ which in 1641 belonged to the ‘Irish Papist’ Matthew Barnewall of Bremore (Simington 1945, 4).  The 16th-century fishing town of Newhaven (DU002-005----) stood in the fields 1.2km to the N of Bremore Castle.  The castle building and associated structures was described in the 1654-56 Civil Survey as; ‘one Burnt Castle with a great Barne & eight tenements one orchard & parke with some small young Ashtrees’ (ibid.).   In 1783, the artist and antiquarian, Austin Cooper described Bremore Castle and possible adjoining bawn area as; ‘a modern building with good limestone quoins, window frames, muinnions [mullions] &c.. ......The lower part of this Cas[tl]e is very strong & arched in a very irregular manner, & appears to me to have been not many years ago inhabited. Besides a number of Garden walls & such like inclosures still to be traced are the walls of a Chapel in wch. nothing is remarkable’ (Price 1942).  

The ruins of Bremore Castle and the adjoining bawn enclosing an area to the W of the castle was described in the 1880s which was then in the possession of the King family; ‘Mr King who takes a great interest in this relic of antiquity, and showed me every part of it.  Proceeding westward along the north side, but still inside the castle, we find a small open space immediately adjoining the small stone chamber, and then comes the place where the stair turret was, at the north-west corner.  A few steps still remain, showing that the stairs were strong and wide. This turret projects beyond the west wall a few feet, as is found so often.  The southern wall of this turret forms the north side of the original main entrance.  At a little distance from this entrance, and right across the present yard, are seen stone pillars in a wall which, Mr. King explained, were the remains of the outer gate through which the castle was approached in old times' (Dix 1898, 68).  

Monitoring in 1995, revealed stone-built channels associated with a garderobe and drainage (Swan 1996, 11). As part of the Conservation Plan undertaken in 2011/12, a resistivity survey (Licence No. 11R0038) was carried out by Target Ltd. within the walled garden at the eastern side of the castle and extended to the adjacent playing pitch. A concentration of anomalies, suggesting buried remains, was identified within the walled garden. These may represent remains including a possible well/water feature, pathways, and internal divisions. A portion of the possible foundation of the medieval walled enclosure was recorded in this area

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

References

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1945 The Civil Survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol. VII: County of Dublin. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Walsh, Rev. R. 1888 Fingal and its churches. Dublin. William McGee.

Price, L. (ed.) 1942 An eighteenth-century antiquary: the sketches, notes and Diaries of Austin Cooper, 1759-1880. Dublin.

Swan, D.L. 1996 Stratigraphical Report on Archaeological Monitoring and Testing at Bremore Castle, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Dublin. 

Dix, E.R. McC. 1898 The Lesser Castles in the Co. Dublin. Thirty-Sixth Article. Bremore Castle. Irish Builder 40, 68.
Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.