Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

On a SE-facing rise overlooking Cloghballymore Lough which is a turlough. This rectangular six-storey high tower house (L c. 9m; Wth 7.05m) now stands at the SE end of Cloghballymore House (GA103-109001-), an 18th-19th-century mansion, where it is wedged between the house proper and outbuildings, partially obscuring both its NW and SE walls. It was in existence in 1574 when it was in the possession of 'Shane McBrene McGilkely' (Nolan 1901, 113). It is constructed of coursed limestone blocks with dressed quoinstones. The original round-arched doorway, centrally placed in the NE wall, gives access to a lobby from which further doorways lead to the spiral stairs in the E corner, the guardroom in the N corner and the main ground-floor room to the SW. An unusual feature is a very small room on the right-hand side as you approach the spiral stairs. A low pointed doorway access it. There is a stone vault between 1st/2nd floors and all the floors above this still retain wooden floors albeit some in poor condition. A fireplace with jogged voussoirs in the SW wall on the 6th floor is probably a 17th-century insertion. A garderobe exit chute is visible at the base of the SW wall. The roof and parapets appear to date from the early 19th century (Blake 1918-19, 133, 138) but the corbels of four machicouli, centrally placed along each wall at parapet level, still survive. The windows consist mainly of flat, round and ogee-headed single lights and angle loop. However, there are two tiny cross-shaped opes at the 2nd and 4th-floor levels and two fine twin-lighted transomed windows on the 6th floor, that on the wall is ogee headed while that on the wall is square headed. (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 368-9; Fahey 1893, 252)

Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 24 September 2021

References

Blake, M.J. 1918-19 The families of French of Duras, Cloghballymore, and Drumharsna, with tabular pedigree. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 10, 125-139.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.

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

Fahey, J.A. 1893 (Reprint 1986) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Kilmacduagh. Galway. Kenny Gallery.