Castle - unclassified

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