Outwork

The National Monuments Service's description

On the top of Castlecomer motte, at the NE end. The motte is situated in the grounds of Castlecomer House, on elevated ground lying at the confluence of the Dinin River (also known as the river Deen), c. 120m to the W, with a tributary river immediately to the S, to the E of Castlecomer. Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 159) and Orpen (1909, 319) mention that the castle which stood on the motte, or the ‘Garrison’, was besieged by the Confederate army in 1641 for over three months. Carrigan (ibid.) adds that it,‘has been entirely demolished’, though he mentions that a, ‘small fragment of a very modern building, perhaps of a barrack, may be seen on the site’. It is likely that the garrison mentioned above is the bastioned fort (KK005-104----) which is located in the NE quarter of Castlecomer town and that this structure is the remains of an outwork of the late 16th/early 17th-century fort (Farrelly, O'Reilly and Loughran 1993, vol. 1, 127; Ó Drisceoil 2018, 73-5). It consists of a pentagonal stone-walled structure (N wall - ext. L 6.1m; SE wall – int. L 2.4m; wall T 0.55-0.6m), with a substantial base-batter (H 2.4m; T 2.4m), the wall rises 3.3m above the base-batter at the S. There is evidence of internal plaster on some walls.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 18 January 2022

References

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2018 Excavation of a seventeenth century bastioned fort at High Street, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny. Old Kilkenny Review 70, 45-77.

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

Orpen, G.H. 1909 Motes and Norman castles in Ossory. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 39, 313-42.

Farrelly, J., O'Reilly, B., and Loughran, A. 1993 Urban archaeological survey - county Kilkenny (2 vols.). Unpublished report commissioned by the Office of Public Works, Dublin.