Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

In pastureland on the summit of a low ridge c. 15m to the W of the Claremorris to Limerick railway line. In existence in 1574 when 'Bally McDuffe' castle was in the possession of 'Redmund McHubert' (Nolan 1901, 113). It comprises a fairly well-preserved rectangular tower (10.4m NE-SW; 9m NW-SE) at least four storeys high. The original doorway, centrally placed in the NE wall, gives access to a lobby with a murder-hole above. From the lobby, doorways lead to the spiral stairs in the N corner, the guardroom to the S and to main ground-floor room. There are subsidiary chambers to the NE of the main rooms on the 1st floor and between the 2nd/3rd floors. Stone vaults exist between 1st/2nd and 2nd/3rd floors. There are fireplaces in the SE walls of the ground and 2nd floors, the former is an insertion into a window embrasure. A passage opening off the stairs between 2nd/3rd floors, runs along the NW wall to a garderobe in the W corner, its exit chute is visible externally at the base of the SW wall. An intramural passage also opens off the side of a window embrasure in the SW wall on the 2nd floor. It runs SE and may possibly lead to a concealed chamber below it in the thickness of the vault arch. Little or no trace of the side-walls of the 3rd floor remain. All the surviving windows are flat, round or ogee-headed single lights. Wicker-centring survives on the main vaults, the vault of the guardroom and on some of the window embrasures. A short length of walling (L c. 3m, H 2m) abuts the mid-point of the SE wall of the castle; it runs SE to edge of a scarp. It could possibly be part of original bawn wall. (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 2, 601)

Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 23 August 2021

References

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.