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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - hall-house

Kilskeagh, County Galway, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - hall-house, Kilskeagh, 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
Kilskeagh
County
Galway
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Witches Castle in ruins
Latest-edition OS map
Witches Castle (in Ruins)
Coordinates
53.36126, -8.79977
SMR number
GA071-049----

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

In well-drained undulating pastureland. It consists of a small 13th-C castle in fair condition. What survives is N gable wall and substantial sections of the adjoining E and W walls of a two-storey rectangular keep (L >8.7m, Wth 7.6m). No trace of the original doorway survives. However, the presence of a horizontal socket (for a drawbar) at the frayed S end of E wall may indicate the position of a doorway on the ground floor. The presence of horizontal offsets halfway up E and W walls indicate the former position of the wooden floor between ground/1st floors. A doorway on 1st floor at extreme N end of W wall led to a projecting latrine, the ragged stonework of which is visible externally. The surviving windows consist of simple rectangular slits; that in N wall on 1st floor is set in a small embrasure. There are two small aumbries in E and W walls on ground floor. Evidently still in use in 1574 when it was in the possession of 'Murrogh McSwyne' (Nolan 1901b, 119). A church (GA071-076001-) lies 755m to NNW.

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