Castle - ringwork

The National Monuments Service's description

On a prominent hillock in gently undulating pastureland, c. 4km to the NNW of Athenry town (GA084-001----). Though named 'Convent (in Ruins)' on the 1838 and 1933 editions of the OS maps, the extant remains appear to be those of a castle. Furthermore, the 1574 list of Galway castles includes one at 'Carnan' then in the possession of a 'John Oge fitz John fitz Ed' (Nolan 1901, 119). What survives is a roughly oval enclosure (c. 50m E-W; c. 32m N-S) on the hill summit. This is defined from SE to S by a mortared stone wall (L 21m; Wth 0.9m; H 4m max.) with an almost square turret (ext. dims. 2.9m E-W; 2.8m N-S), of 16th-century date, projecting 2.2m beyond it at its SE end. The turret survives to a height of two storeys. The ground floor is filled with grass-covered rubble. It was lit by rectangular loops in the E and W walls. Traces of the spiral stairs survive in the NE corner at 1st-floor level and this floor was also lit by a rectangular loop in each wall. A pencilled note in the OS Name Books of 1838 suggests that the turret was in fact called 'the nunnery tower' (Cody 1989, 346, 350). However, there is no documentary evidence for a nunnery at this location: the castle was possibly occupied by nuns for a time in the post-Reformation period. To its W, the line of the enclosure continues as a ruined wall (Wth 1.8m; H 0.5m) in three straight lengths from S to W. From W through N to E, it is defined by a substantial stony bank but no trace of the enclosing element survives from E to S. These defences are supplemented at W by a deep fosse which cuts across the end of the hill summit in an arc from SW to NW, leaving a small triangular platform outside it. The interior is uneven with traces of at least two mortared walls running N-S, a possible rectangular house, and a large quarry pit. Outside this enclosure at the foot of the hill is a second roughly concentric earthen enclosure (E-W 125m; N-S 105m). This too takes a number of forms: a bank from NNE to SSW, a scarp from SSW to W and two banks with an intervening fosse from W to NNE. At N there is an entrance (Wth 10m) with a causeway across the fosse. This is connected to a corresponding entrance (Wth 2m) in the inner enclosure by a radial bank. Other radial banks/fosses also connect the inner and outer enclosures at S and W but at E a large pile of grassed-over stone obscures all. There is a second entrance in the outer enclosure at this point giving access to an adjoining roadway (GA084-040009-). Cody (ibid., 346-8) has suggested that this monument is an Anglo-Norman ringwork castle.

Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 30 August 2021

References

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

Nolan, J.P. 1901a Galway castles and owners in 1574. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 1, 109-23.