Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated at the W end of an E-W ridge that is at the bottom of the S-facing slope of the Fourknocks ridge and overlooking a W-E section of the Delvin River which is c. 10m below it. The castle is depicted and annotated on Roque’s map of Co. Dublin (1760) and Duncan’s map of Dublin of 1821 in an area called Snowtown. According to the Civil Survey (1654) John Cadle, an Irish Papist, owned 300 acres at the Nall in 1641 and on the premises were two mills (ME034-008----; ME034-009----) and a castle. He also owned over 300 acres at Borinstown (Bodingtown), Mooresydes, and Flemingtown in Clonalvy parish (Simington 1940, 32). The land at Naul passed to Arthur Mervyn who built three mills at Naul. The property was then inherited by the Pollard family and c. 1800 it passed to the Ennis family who built Naul Park House.

The original castle is thought to have been built by Richard Caddell in the 13th century, but this is unlikely. Richard Caddell was the sherriff of Connaught in 1301 and the Caddell family were one of the tribes of Galway before they changed their name to Blake in the seventeenth century. At some stage one of the Caddells acquired the Naul estate, probably through marriage. Austin Cooper described the castle in 1781 as ‘a large square castle with towers at each corner, whose diameters are equal to the spaces between them’ (Price 1942, 61). This suggests that it was a tower house that was similar in design to the W tower at Lusk church (DU008-010004-). The remains of 'Whitecastle or Snowtown castle' were demolished in 1787 but the remaining E wall was incorporated into the W side of Naul Park House which was built c. 1800. This house was a five-bay two storey and E-facing house that was demolished in the 1980s but the ground floor footings of the house are thought to remain. It was first reported by Colin Byrne and has been thoroughly researched by I. Lennon.

Compiled by Michael Moore

Date of upload: 13/03/2012
Amended: 11 April, 2023

Price, L. (1942, 2nd ed.). In An Eighteenth Century Antiquary. The Sketches, Notes And Diaries Of Austin Cooper (p. 61). Dublin: J. Falconer.
Simington, R. C. 1940 The Civil Survey AD 1654-1658 vol. 5, County of Meath. Stationary Office, Dublin