Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

Rathnaseer Castle described by Salter (2004, 93) as follows; 'This Desmond tower measuring 8.6m by 7.2m has two storeys below a vault and one more above, all the levels being rather defaced. The SE corner contains a spiral staircase and the east wall contains two rooms over the entrance passage. A lost upper storey had a latrine in the NE corner. Rathnaser was granted to the Billingsleys in 1588. Here in 1599 the O'Neill Earl of Tyrone proclaimed James FitzGerald as Earl of Desmond'. Castle classified by Donnelly (1999, 25, 37) as a Type 1E tower house where 'the entrance at ground floor level leads into an entrance lobby. A doorway on one side of the entrance lobby leads into a mural recess. To the other side of the lobby is a doorway leading into a mural passage, which connects with a spiral staircase located in a corner of the building'.
The 1654-56 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that Thomas FitzGerald of Rathnaseer, an Irish Papist, was the owner of '60 Irish accres, wth a Castle' (Simington 1938, 303).

See attached plan taken from Donnelly 1999.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 8 December 2020

References

Salter, M. 2004 The castles of North Munster. Worcestershire. Folly Publications.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1938 The civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol. IV: county of Limerick, with a section of Clanmaurice barony Co. Kerry. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Donnelly, C.J. 1999 A Typological Study of the Tower Houses of County Limerick. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 129, 19-39.