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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Lough Melvin, County Leitrim, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Lough Melvin, County Leitrim, 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
Lough Melvin
County
Leitrim
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Castle
Latest-edition OS map
Rosclogher Castle (in Ruins)
Coordinates
54.44225, -8.23991
SMR number
LE002-014002-

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 1881 map "Ireland to Illustrate the Military Condition of the Country." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1881 · Ireland to Illustrate the Military Condition of the Country. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1904 · Sheet 4. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1922 · Ireland - northern section. (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

Built on the S side of crannóg (LE002-01401-), which is located c. 100m off the S shore of Lough Melvin close to Rosclogher church (LE002-015001-), which is c. 120m to the S. This is a castle of the McClancy clan which was visited by Captain de Cuellar, a survivor of the Armada, in 1588 (O'Reilly 1893), who provides a detailed account of life in the tower house. The castle is a rectangular masonry structure (int. dims 7.5m N-S; 6.55m E-W) of which only the W and S walls survive (max. H c. 9m at S) with dressed quoins. It had at least three storeys, and is now badly obscured with ivy. Architectural features do not survive and only fragments of window opes, a doorway and a mural passage are visible. An E-W internal division was inserted as a secondary feature at ground floor level. There is a low wall 3.15m from the W wall, with gun-loops facing the shore, which Captain de Cuellar built.

The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim' compiled by Michael J. Moore (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2003). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 23 September 2008

References

O'Reilly, P.J. 1893 Remarks on certain passages in Captain Cuellar's narrative of his adventures in Ireland, after the wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588-89, followed by a literal translation of that narrative. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 19, 175-217.

McDermott, J. J. 2019 Late medieval strongholds of the Gaelic Irish in County Leitrim. in In Kelly, L. and Scott, B. Leitrim: History and Society, 103-27. Dublin, Geography Publications

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
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