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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - unclassified

Castle, County Galway, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - unclassified, County Galway, 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
Castle
County
Galway
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Castle in ruins
Latest-edition OS map
Castle (in Ruins)
Coordinates
53.63585, -8.64954
SMR number
GA006-035002-

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 a low spur in undulating grassland overlooking a stream to S. Known locally as 'Caislean Beg or Little Castle' (Neary 1914, 124, no. 1) and described as a 'small square castle … long a quarry, and only the foundation remains, 24 ft. [7.3m] square in plan, walls 4 ft. [1.2m] thick'. What survives is an indeterminate grassed-over mound of earth and stone in which fragmentary sections of three walls are visible. These comprise an E wall (L 5m, Wth >0.3m, H 2m max.) along with short sections of the adjoining N wall (L 1.3m, Wth 0.7m). At S end of the former is a blocked ope (Wth 1.6m), possibly a door or gateway. The S side of the ope is formed by a short separate wall fragment (S wall), running E-W (L 1.2m, Wth 0.7m, H 2.2m). Neary (ibid.) also mentions the 'openings of two souterrains … in the centre of the castle ruin', no trace of which is now visible: possibly cellars but unlikely to be souterrains.

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999).

Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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 - unclassified in Galway All County Galway records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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