Bastioned fort

The National Monuments Service's description

On a long gentle S-facing, pasture slope. Depicted on an 1853 sketch of an original ‘Plan of the Castle of Ballyshannon, with its Outworks, in 1650’ as a bastioned fort - shown under attack during the Confederate War (1641-53) - (Fitzgerald 1899-1902, 447). A rectangular area is shown (est. dims. from OS 25-inch map c. 40m N-S; c. 30m E-W) with triangular bastions on each corner projecting NW, NE, SE and SW. Ballyshannon Castle (KD032-003002-) is shown in the interior. An accompanying, ‘A description of the strong fort of Ballisanon, in Leinster (1650)’ lists an inner ‘moat … in some places 40 foot [c. 12m] broad … the graft [ditch] 25 foot [c. 7.6m] in five places and 12 foot [c. 3.6m] deep (with a drawbridge near the NW angle) … the Rampire and Parapet 30 [c. 9m] foot thick and in some places 25 foot [c. 7.6m] high’. Two outworks are also depicted, and are annotated, ‘The workes of the Towne’. The first, L-shaped, encloses all but the E side and portion of the SE angle of the bastioned fort, as well as an earlier motte (KD028-058001-) and a church (KD028-058002-) to the N, and an entrance is shown mid way along its N side. A second outwork, with projecting bastions, runs outside and parallel to the W and N sides of the first. ‘The Black Castle’ (KD032-003003-) is shown defending a gateway on its W side. No visible surface traces survive.

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.