Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

This impressive tower house stands in private ground at the foot of the Dublin Mountains. It was associated with the Walsh family (Goodbody 1993, 19-22). It rises to three storeys with stepped battlements marked by a string course and a SE corner tower which projects above parapet level. It is built of randomly coursed granite blocks with small packing stones. The entrance is in the S wall through a pointed segmental arched opening. It is rectangular in plan (int. dims. L 8.2m; Wth 4.8m) with a vaulted ground floor on a N-S axis and a stair turret in the SE. The interior is lit by a slit ope in the S wall. The N end collapsed in the 19th-century but the N and E walls survive to foundation level. The base of the walls are considerably undercut in the interior. There are beam holes visible at the top of the walls where the vault starts over the ground floor. The former existence of a loft at this level is indicated by the presence of a slit ope in the S wall. There are remains of a fireplace on the W wall of the upper floor and a square-headed rectangular window, with chamfered granite jambs. A lookout platform is carried on a squinch arch (Anon 1900, 190-91, Anon 1914, 227-8; 1983, 79-81). In the field to the N of the tower house a medieval ditch (L 14m, Wth 4m, d 1.2-1.3m) was excavated in 2003. The ditch deposits yielded unburnt bone and four sherds of medieval pottery (Hagen, I. 2006, 163).
Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy.
Revised upload on: 21 April 2018.

References

Anon. 1900 Excursion to Tully, Rathmichael, Kiltiernan and other places in south County Dublin. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 30, 180-92.

Anon. 1914e South County Dublin. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 44, 223-88.

Goodbody, R. 1993 On the borders of the Pale. A history of Kilgobbin, stepaside and the Sandyford area. Bray. Pale Publishing.

Hagen, I. 2004 Templecarrig Lower. In I. Bennett (Ed.) Excavations 2002: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 541 (No. 1990). Bray. Wordwell.