Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Castle - unclassified
Thomastown (coshma By.), County Limerick, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Thomastown (coshma By.)
- County
- Limerick
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- SMR number
- LI047-087----
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
The precise location of Thomastown Castle has not been identified. Westropp (1906-7, 173) recorded the following details about Thomastown Castle; '1558 Ger. f. Tho., of Thomastown, was Sheriff of County Limerick (Fi. 42). 1599 Ger. f. Morris FitzGerald died seised of the C[astle], mortgaged in 1591 to (David Miagh). Thomas his grandson redeemed it, 1601, with Bollybally and Tobornea (Inq. Chan., 9,61 ). 1655 Gerrott FitzGerald, of Caherass, held it (C.S. xxiv., p. 3). It lay in the manor of Tobornea, 1721' (Mem. of Adare, p. 280).'. The 1659 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that in the townland of Thomastown there stood, 'a ruinous Castle & a Mill seate' which belonged to Gerratt FitzGerrald of Caherass (Simington 1938, 122). The townland of Thomastown lies immediately to the E of Mountblakeney. On the 1654-56 Down Survey map of Coshma Barony 'The Castle of Thomastowne' is depicted as a tower house type structure standing inside a bawn in the parish of Kilbreedy (Hib. Reg.'). Mountblakeney Castle (LI047-039----) may be the same site as the unlocated Thomastown Castle.
See attached Down Survey map of Coshma Barony showing Thomastown Castle
Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien
Date of upload: 23 August 2021
References
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.
Westropp, T.J. 1906-7 The ancient castles of the county of Limerick. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 26, 54-264.
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.