House - fortified house

The National Monuments Service's description

Drombanny Castle also known as Thomas Power's Court (OSNB Cahernarry parish, 333-4) stands on top of a hill with a dovecote (LI013-239---) 100m to ENE. Brown's Stone (LI013-055----) and a castle also called Drombanny Castle (LI013-053----) lies 530m and 800m to the N respectively. Cahernarry church (LI013-062001-) stands 1.4km to the E.
Westropp (1906-7, 89) recorded the following details about Drombanny; 'Two C[astle].s marked, one in Donaghmore [LI013-053----] and one in Caheravally to south. 1584 Donnell Mac Canna, the lands (Fi., 4615), and in 1587 the C[astle], which he entailed on his sons (Inq. Cha. Car. I., 90). 1621 H..Holcroft granted the ruined C[astle], late estate of Edm. McCany (Pat. R.). Yet in 1629 livery on Drombanny was granted to Edm. McCanny on death of Donough, his father. (lb.). 1655 Piers Creagh, f. Andrew, held the broken C[astle]. (C.S., xxix., p. 21, D.S.A., 7, 9). 1669 Granted to Duke of York (Act Sett.)'.
This castle is depicted on the Down Survey map of South Liberties Barony as a house with central chimneystack rising above the roofline standing in the townland of 'Brownestowne' in the parish of Cahernarry (Hib. Reg.). On this map the second castle of Drombanny (LI013-053----) is depicted as a tower house type castle standing in the parish of Donaghmore to the NNW. The terrier of the Down Survey map of Cahernarry parish stated that there was 'a good stone house at Brownestowne' (NLI, MS 718).

See attached Down Survey map of South Liberties Barony showing the house in Brownestowne

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 3 July 2020

References

OSNB - Ordnance Survey Name Books. Pro-forma books arranged by Civil Parish for recording townland and other name-forms and compiled in the course of the OS 6-inch survey 1824-1841. The name books also include minor names and incidental references to antiquities. National Archives of Ireland.

OSL - Ordnance Survey Letters. Letters written by members of the Ordnance Survey's 'Topographical Department' (T. O'Conor, A. O'Curry, E. Curry, J. O'Donovan and P. O'Keeffe) sent to headquarters from the field (1834-41). MSS in Royal Irish Academy.

Westropp, T.J. 1906-7 The ancient castles of the county of Limerick. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 26, 54-264.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1929 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Limerick collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1841. Bray

Hibernia Regnum: A set of 214 barony maps of Ireland dating to the period AD 1655-59. The original parish maps have been lost but the Hibernia Regnum maps are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Goblet 1932, v-x). Photographic facsimiles of these maps were published by the Ordnance Survey, Southampton in 1908.

NLI, MS 718 - National Library of Ireland, Parish maps with terriers, showing forfeited lands in County Limerick, commonly known as the "Down Survey", executed under the direction of Sir William Petty, 1657, and copied by Daniel O'Brien, 1786.