House - fortified house

The National Monuments Service's description

it is located on a promontory, which was once an island known as Castle Island, near the S shore of Lough Scur in an area of scrub and rock outcrop. The house was built by John Reynolds, who was amongst one of the first of the Mac Raghnall to anglicise the name to Reynolds. He supported initiatives by the government to settle Leitrim, probably as a means of escaping the overlordship of O’Rourke. John Reynolds, or Seán na gCeann (of the heads), received a grant of over 2,000 acres as the manor of Lough Scur in 1621-2 (Mac an Ghalloglaigh 1971, 236, 253), and his son, Humphry, describes it in his will of 1660 as 20 cartrons or townlands, but the house is not mentioned (O’Connell 1960, 226). The house is depicted on the Down Survey (1656-8) barony and parish maps together with the watchtower (LE024-048----) on Prison Island c. 150m to the NW. The house was a roofless ruin by 1797 (Grose 1792, vol. 2, 91-2) and has survived almost unchanged since, although with a dense cover of ivy.
The house is a rectangular, roofless, five-bay, three-storey house (int. dims 14m E-W; 6.25m N-S) surviving almost complete, except for the E gable. The house has rectangular windows from which no dressed stone survives, although some square hood-moulding fragments are visible. There is a destroyed doorway in the centre of the S wall, and a semi-circular newel stair tower with gun-loops projects from the centre of the N wall, but the stair does not survive. The remains of fireplaces can be identified on both gables and in the N wall adjacent to the stairs tower. South of the house are low earthen banks suggesting outhouses, and a roadway (Wth 9m) approaches the house from the S. (Lewis 1837, vol. 2, 217)

See the attached view from the Down Survey parish map (N at right) reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland (Ms 717).

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

O’Connell, P. 1960, Some Co. Leitrim wills. Breifne, vol. 1, 3, 225-41.

References

Grose, F. 1791 The antiquities of Ireland, 2 vols. London. S. Hooper.

Lewis, S. 1837 A topographical dictionary of Ireland, 2 vols. London. Lewis and Co.

Mac an Ghalloglaigh, an t-Athair D. 1971 Leitrim 1600-1641. Journal of Cumann Seanchas Breifne (Breifne Historical Society) 4 (14), 225-54.