House - 17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

On a rise overlooking a bridging point on E bank of a small stream, probably on or close to the site of an earlier castle (GA007-062----). This well-preserved semi-fortified 17th-C house, now a Nat. Mon., was probably built by the Burke family c. 1630 (Harbison 1975, 92-3; Bence-Jones 1978, 141). Rectangular in ground plan (ENE-WSW; L 19m, Wth 10.5m), it consists of three storeys over a basement (Craig 1982, 132-3). The main doorway, at first-floor level in S wall, is set into W side of a deeply recessed centre bay. There is also a centrally placed pointed arch doorway on the ground floor in N wall: a perforation in its W jamb suggests the former presence of a yett. None of the internal floors survive but from the traces visible in the surviving plasterwork, the stairs were centrally placed. There were fireplaces on each floor in E and W gables, both of which are surmounted by clusters of five diagonally disposed chimneys. Each of the single-light ground-floor window is set into a deep embrasure with flanking musket loops. The upper floors are lit by flat-headed mullioned windows of two or three lights. There are two machicolations at parapet level on SE and SW corners and a third commands the doorway in N wall. The roof comprised two parallel gabled ridges running N-S, linked by a cross ridge. The house was enclosed by a bawn (GA007-062002-), but only a section of its W wall (L >18, Wth 1m, H 3m), and the foundations of a circular turret (D 5.7m, H 1.2m) at SE corner survive. (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 73; Leask 1951, 131-2)

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

This monument was taken into Guardianship under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 - National Monument 439.

References

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.

Bence-Jones, M. 1978 Burke's Guide to Country Houses: Volume 1 Ireland. London. Burke's Peerage Ltd.

Leask, H.G. 1951 (revised edition) Irish castles and castellated houses. Dundalk. Dundalgan Press.

Craig, M. 1982 The architecture of Ireland from the earliest times to 1880. Dublin. Eason and Son Ltd. London. Batsford.

Harbison, P. 1975 (2nd. ed. 1992 reprint) Guide to the national monuments in the Republic of Ireland. Gill and Macmillan, Dublin.