Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Castle - unclassified
Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Ballymahon
- County
- Longford
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- SMR number
- LF027-003004-
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
In 1401 the annals record that the ‘castle of Baile Í Mhathan was begun by Muiris son of Conchobhar’ (Ó hInnse 1947, 164). In 1620 a land grant to James Mc William Ferrall included the 'castle, town [LF027-003006-] and lands of Ballymahan' (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, 466). Mason (1819, vol. 3, 338) noted that, during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, it was the residence of Sir James Dillon Jnr., whose lands were later confiscated by the Crown. He described it as a ‘strong castle, near a ford over the Inny, and near the present bridge [LF027-003003-]', which had ‘been long since taken down, the cellars of it remain under a house erected on its ruins’ (ibid.). Its precise location has not been identified. (Lewis 1837, vol. 1, 146; Simington 1961, vol. 10, 48; Gillespie and Moran 1991, 217)
Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien
Date of upload: 26 September 2012
References
Lewis, S. 1837 A topographical dictionary of Ireland, 2 vols. London. Lewis and Co.
Ó hInnse, S. (ed.) 1947 'Mac Carthaig's Book', Miscellaneous Irish Annals (AD 1114-1437). The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Gillespie, R. and Moran, G. (eds.) 1991 Longford: essays in county history. Dublin. Lilliput Press.
Mason, W.S. 1814-19 A statistical account or parochial survey of Ireland, 3 vols. Dublin. Faulkner-Press.
Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I - Irish patent rolls of James I: facsimile of the Irish record commissioners' calendar prepared prior to 1830, with foreword by M.C. Griffith (Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 1966)