Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

Ruins of Athlacca House standing on N side of the Morningstar River depicted on 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map and known locally as the 'Mansion House' may have been built on site of or incorporated medieval castle of Athlacca. Modern farmyard now stands on site of Athlacca House. Athlacca Church (LI039-014001-) and graveyard (LI039-014002-) 210m to E.
Westropp (1906-7, 168) recorded the following details about Athlacca; '1285 Athleketh, a manor of Maur. FitzGerald, frequently appears with Adare, as a manor of the Earls of Kildare. 1318 J. Gower held it. There is little independent mention of it. 1655 David Lacy held Aghleakagh C[astle]. mill, and orchard (C.S., xxiv., p. 9 ; D.S.A., 42). 1666 Granted to C. Ormsby (Act Sett.). The C[astle]. was standing in 1827 (FitzGerald, i., p. 323), destroyed before 1840'.
The 1654-56 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that in 1641 David Lacy of Athlacca an Irish Papist was the owner in Athlacca of 'a Mill [LI039-115----] an orchard and twoe good tatch houses, with a Castle' (Simington 1938, 126). Tower-house type castle depicted on the 1654-7 Down Survey map of Coshma Barony (Hib. Reg.). In 1840 the Ordnance Survey recorded that 'in the S of the td. [Athlacca North] is an old ruin. Mansion House - Old Court, near Athlacka Village. In ruins. An ancient residence of the De Lacy family (OSNB Athlacca Parish]'.

See attached Down Survey barony map

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 30 April 2021

References

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.

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.

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.

Fitzgerald, P. 1826-7 The history, topography, and antiquities of the county and city of Limerick. 2 vols. Dublin.