Bawn

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 (GA007-062001-), 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: 20 December 2017