Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

In centre of Bruree graveyard (LI039-102003-) with site of St. Mainchin's Church (LI039-102002-) to E. Annotated 'Bruree Castle Upper (In Ruins)' on the Cassini ed. OSi 6-inch map, the castle stands in the townland of Ballynoe (An Baile Nua/Newtown) in the parish of Bruree (Brú Rí/ abode of kings), barony of Connello Upper (Conallaigh Uachtaracha). Residential tower of the Bishop of Limerick, and possibly the vicars residence or vicarage of 15th century date stands at the W end of the levelled medieval parish church of St. Mainchin/Munchin. The tower stands on high ground overlooking overlooking the River Maigue and the village of Bruree to the N and E. Castle depicted standing adjacent to the glebe land of the medieval parish church on the 17th century Down Survey map of Connello Barony (Hib. Reg.). On this map the 13th century Anglo-Norman castle of Bruree (LI039-097----) is shown standing to the NW with the annotation 'The castle plow & mannor of Brury'. On the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map this castle is depicted standing inside the glebeland of the church, closely matching the location on the Down Survey barony map. In 1700 Lewis Prytherch, Vicar of Bruree, described the church, glebe and castle as follows; 'The Rectorie belongs to the Deanerie of Limerick; and is, I thinke, part of the corps of it, the Dean presents to ye vicarage, & he income & tythes of the parish is betwixt them. There is in all the Down surveigh 23 acres, 1 rood & 16 perches of Gleab Land; There is a large tall old castle standinge by the church, & it belongs to the Rector or Dean of Liimerick, and onely 5 acres of the said Gleabe yt are next to it belong to it as ye people say & witness. The other 17 acres belong to the vicar; and they lie in three pieces' (Jackson 1945, 150). Castle described in 1837 as; 'Adjoining the church is a large and strong castle in a tolerably perfect state, erected by the Knights Templars in the 12th century' (Lewis 1837) which is certainly not the case (Gwynn and Hadcock 1988, 340). In 1896 the tower was described as follows; 'The enclosed area measures only twenty-four feet [7.3m] by thirteen [4m]. The north-eastern angle has fallen down, thus exposing to view the interior of the building. A narrow entrance gives admittance to the lower story, at the side of which may still be seen the stone sockets in which the door formerly turned. Two courses of stone corbels show that two floors rested upon them, thus dividing the interior space into three stories. The roof of the third story was arched and vaulted and is still uninjured. A spiral stone stairs, in an angle of the walls, runs to the battlements of the castle' (Dowd 1896, 61).
Westropp (1906-7, 230) recorded the following details about this castle; 'The "Upper" C[astle]. stands at Bruree, near the church. It is traditionally a Templary. A peel tower about 70 feet [21m] high; the walls are 5½ feet [1.67m] thick. It has five stories, the third vaulted, and a spiral stair. The north-west angle has fallen (O.S.L, 9, p. 290)'. Castle described by O'Donovan in 1840 as follows; ‘the Castle of Upper Bruree stands in the Church yard close to the site of the old Church. It is a square tower measuring on the the outside twenty four feet six inches [7.46m] from north to south and thirty five feet [10.6m] from east to west. It is five stories high and its walls are five feet four inches [1.62m] thick. I do not believe that this Castle is more than four centuries old’ (OSL). Location in graveyard suggests this was a residential tower attached to W end of the parish church (Manning 1998, 129). Castle classified by Donnelly (1999, 37) as a Type 5 tower house which he described as consisting 'of tower houses which exhibited rectangular floor plans each of which is unique to an individual site, though each building had architectural features which placed them firmly within the Irish Gothic tower house tradition' (ibid. 22).
Present remains consist of a rectangular tower (ext. dims. 7.5m N-S; 9.8m E-W) built of roughly coursed stone blocks. Outside elevations now completely masked with ivy. There are two main vaults, over third and fifth floors; lower one rounded and wicker-centred (axis E-W); upper one completely collapsed but had same axis. Entered through ground-floor doorway near E end of N wall; door, with pointed-arched surround, now blocked-up. Short lintelled doorway gives access on E side to base of spiral stairs rising in NE corner of tower, and straight through to main ground-floor chamber (4.3m N-S; 6.8m E-W). Latter lit by central window in S and W walls: both splayed inside and outside from central light. Just below level of sill of first-floor door, spiral stairs was blocked by three drawbars; the sockets for these survive showing bars withdrawn on S side. First-floor chamber entered directly from stairs through lintelled door at N end of E wall. Like room below lit by central window in S and W walls; outside of W window missing; S window very narrow but probably double splayed. Third-floor chamber probably entered via mural chamber from stairs but this area now largely ruined. Chamber lit by singe window in centre of W wall with splayed and lintelled embrasure and flat-headed light. Overhead is vault which has broken opening at apex on both E and W ends. Third-floor chamber entered directly from stairs via lintelled door at N end of E wall; a small slit window looks into the stairwell, on its S side, from the main chamber. East wall is fallen at this level; this room has window in centre of W, N and E walls, all now very ruinous. At fourth-floor level doors from stairs gave entry S into mural chamber, now gone, and into main chamber which has central window in W wall with narrow splayed and lintelled embrasure. Only springings of vault, which covered this chamber, no left. Tower does not survive to fifth-floor level except for lintelled door at top of spiral stairs which faces S but was closed from the inside suggesting it gave entry to wall walk.

See attached ASI aerial photograph ASIAP – 372/26, 27 on 10/05/2003; 321/5, 6 on 05/10/2002 and photographs provided courtesy of Gary Dickinson and recent photographs provided courtesy of Sarah McCutcheon.

Compiled by: Denis Power

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by Sarah McCutcheon

Date of revised upload: 25 October 2022

References

ASIAP - Archaeological Survey of Ireland Aerial Photographs (c. 1996 - c. 2010).

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.

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

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.

Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.

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

Dowd, J. 1896 Round about the County of Limerick. Limerick. G. McKern & Sons.

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.

Manning, C. 1998 Some unpublished Austin Cooper illustrations. Journal of Irish Archaeology 9, 127-34.

Jackson, R. W. 1945 Lewis Prytherch’s manuscript. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 4, no. 4, 143-51.

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.