Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

On a natural flat-topped hillock 1-2m above the valley floor with a small stream c. 20m to the N. There are good views across the valley in all directions. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 281) the castle was founded by or belonged to the Cody family. He relates how an Inquisition of 1609, ‘found that Sir Richard Shee, lately deceased, held Castletown from Richard Archdeacon or Cody, as of his manor of Galmoy, by fealty. From Sir Richard, Castletown passed to his son, Lucas Shee, whose son, Edmund Shee, forteited the townland under Cromwell’ (ibid.). The castle is roughly centrally placed within a rectangular bawn (KK003-004002-). It survives as a rectangular hollow (dims. 16m N-S x 15m E-W) with only fragments of the N wall (L c. 9m) upstanding. The OS Letters (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 115) of 1839 state that only the N wall, which was ‘seven feet [2.1m] thick’, was standing. Carrigan (ibid.) describes the N wall as being, ’30 or 40 ft. [9.1-12.2m] high and eleven feet [3.3] thick at the ground’.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 7 September 2015

References

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1930 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Kilkenny collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Bray.