Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Castle - motte
Ballyshannon Demesne, County Kildare, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Ballyshannon Demesne
- County
- Kildare
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Tumulus
- Coordinates
- 53.08642, -6.82512
- SMR number
- KD028-058001-
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1790 "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
At the top of a long gentle, S-facing pasture slope. A possible medieval church site (KD028-058002-) stands in a graveyard (KD028-058004-) c. 50m to the W, and the levelled Ballyshannon Castle (KD032-003002-) stood c. 80m to the SSW. Depicted on an 1853 sketch of an original ‘Plan of the Castle of Ballyshannon, with its Outworks, in 1650’, as a steep-sided, conical mound, with a possible bank enclosing the summit, on which a large tree is shown; and annotated, 'The high mount fortified which wee stormed' (Fitzgerald 1899-1902, 447). The plan shows an outwork skirting the base of the motte along the N, with a second outwork further N. A low denuded, grass-covered and partially tree-clad, oval, earthen mound (base diams. 30m E-W; 20m N-S; H 2m at S-3.5-4m at E, including natural slope).
Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy
Date of upload: 21 May 2013
References
FitzGerald, Lord W. 1899-1902 The FitzGeralds of Ballyshannon (Co. Kildare), and their successors thereat. Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society 3, 425-52.
Nearby in the register
- Churchunder 1 mi
- Graveyardunder 1 mi
- Bastioned fortunder 1 mi
- Castle - unclassifiedunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.