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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Shaen, County Laois, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Shaen, County Laois, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Shaen
County
Laois
Country
Ireland
Latest-edition OS map
Shaen Castle (in Ruins)
Coordinates
53.07664, -7.24894
SMR number
LA008-013001-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the summit of a hill is a stone-walled garden, the NW angle has a distinct batter and projects forward from the line of the garden. This section of masonry (3.8m E-W, 3.9m N-S, H 2.8m) is built of roughly coursed limestone blocks and appears to be part of a castle, probably a tower house (JKAS 1909, Vol. VI, 68) which is said to have been destroyed in 1650. Sheela-na-Gig (LA008-013002-) is thought to have come from here (Guest 1936, 117).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 17 December 2007

References

Guest, E.M. 1936 Irish sheela na gigs in 1935. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 66, 107-29.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Castle - tower house in Laois All County Laois records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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