Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

In gently rolling pastureland. A ‘Castle (in ruins)’ is named on the 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map among a group of small group of buildings and while it is unclear to which building it refers, it most like was the largest one in the group. It is depicted on the OS 25-inch plan dated 1892 as the remains of a roughly square building (c. 14m N-S; c. 13m E-W), only its E wall and the returns of the N and S walls are shown. It was omitted from the subsequent 25-inch plan dated 1927-8 (Cody 1989, 345-6). According to Cody (ibid.), this was done on the on basis of information provided by a local antiquarian (Matilda Redington) who noted that ‘the ruins were probably those of farmhouse of the Dominican monks at Athenry and not a castle’. Without details of the building it is not possible to verify this and the possibility remains that it could have been a castle. No visible surface traces survives. A number of farm buildings have been built to the S it.

Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 20 August 2021

References

Cody, E. 1989 An archaeological survey of the barony of Athenry, Co. Galway. Unpublished MA thesis, University College Galway.