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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Aughnanure, County Galway, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Aughnanure, 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
Aughnanure
County
Galway
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Aughnanure Castle (in ruins)
Latest-edition OS map
Aughnanure Castle (in Ruins)
Coordinates
53.41876, -9.27569
SMR number
GA054-002----

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 natural rock outcrop on S bank of Drimneen River close to its outflow into Lough Corrib. This Nat. Mon. consists of a 16th-17th-C tower house enclosed by two bawns: a large, irregular outer bawn (46m by 49m), lying to S and E of the tower house, is defended by five turrets. The remains of a rectangular banqueting hall (L 24m, Wth >7m) stand in its SW corner. The earlier, wedge-shaped inner bawn (36m by 22m max.) sits on the rock outcrop and was defended by a drawbridge, gun loops and a circular turret at SE corner, the latter later reused as a dovecote. Centrally placed in the inner bawn is the conserved, rectangular tower house (L 12.2m, Wth 8.7m) of seven storeys, built in two phases. The doorway, in E wall, gives access to a lobby with murder-hole above, and spiral stairs in SE corner. The ground and upper floors each comprise a main chamber with a subsidiary one to E. Stone vaults exist between ground/1st and 3rd/4th floors. There is a fireplace on 4th floor in S wall and latrines on 1st and 4th floors: a trapdoor in the latter gives access to a concealed chamber below it in the thickness of the arch. There are bartizans at SE and NE corners on 2nd floor and a centrally placed machicolation on each wall at parapet level. Much of the latter, and the 7th-storey gabled garret, are reconstructions. There are single-light ogee-headed windows and later twin-light flat-headed windows, with hood-mouldings, in tower: one of the two surviving windows in the banqueting hall has finely decorated soffits (Leask 1951, 106). (OPW 1980; Fleming 1909, 180-2; Killanin 1947, 124, 129)

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993).

Date of upload: 05 August 2010

This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 187/1950).
The monument was taken into Guardianship under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 - National Monument 470.

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