Fish palace

The National Monuments Service's description

Ballinskelligs Castle / Caisleán an Sceilg: Very little historical information is recorded about this small tower house. It is located on the W shore of Ballinskelligs Bay, at the N end of a storm beach a short distance from Ballinskelligs Priory (KE097-036----). Reputed to be a MacCarthy castle, it is possibly to be identified as the manor which the Sigerson family occupied in Ballinskelligs in the early seventeenth century (Lynch 1902b, 352). The history of the tower house appears to be closely linked to that of the nearby priory during the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several references concerning the leasing and garrisoning of the latter are on record (Cal Car MSS 1569, 389; Fiants Eliz No's. 3339, 4992, 5982).

A series of beam sockets along the external face of the NW wall of the castle indicate the former existence of a structure here. That this was an addition is suggested by the fact that it would have blocked the ground floor window ope. The sockets may be support niches for press beams used in seventeenth-century pilchard curing stations. Sir William Petty is recorded as having established a fishery at Ballinskelligs during this time. Two early twentieth-century photographs of the castle (Crawford 1923, 199) show that a building formerly stood against its NE wall. This appears to have been of relatively modern date, as it is not noted in OSL and does not feature in the Lawrence Collection photographs of the site.

The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 1100. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 31 July 2013