Bawn

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated just off the shelf of the lower Diamond at Clones on the E side. It is on an E-facing slope, and on the side of the Diamond that was known as Castle Street. Sir Francis Rushe, the son-in-law of Sir Henry Duke of Castlejordan, Co. Meath (ME052-005----) who had received the initial grant of the lands of Clones monastery (MO011-010001-) probably built the fortified house (MO011-015----) and its associated bawn after 1603. The bawn and its ‘great door’ or gate onto Castle St. are first mentioned in a lease of 1636 (Schlegel 2003, 53). In 1641the castle and bawn provided shelter to Protestants from the area before some were murdered and the survivors escaped to Enniskillen (Shirley 1879, 174-5).
The first image of the castle is in a drawing of Clones dated 1741 viewed from the SE. It shows the castle on the W side of a rectangular yard which is not the full extent of the original bawn. The gateway is in the W wall and there is an unreconstructed part of the castle N of this. A feature like a tower with a conical cap further N is probably the NW angle of the bawn. Gabled structures on the S side of the bawn and in the interior could constitute the brewhouse, stables and other outhouses mentioned in the documents.
The new road to Monaghan was built by 1766, destroying the N part of the Castle garden or the bawn, and in 1767 five new houses, known as the Castle Tenement, were built on the site of the castle and these still form this side of the Diamond as a date-stone confirms. A plan of the town dated 1768 depicts the Diamond much as it is today. The gateway of the castle may have survived as references continue to be made to it and to the castle garden.
Mr. George Knight of Clones, who has researched the castle through the documents, identified parts of the structure in buildings behind the E side of the Diamond during 2016, and this can be confirmed (Ó Drisceoil 2016). The positively identified remains consist of a vaulted structure on the S side of the bawn, including the S wall rising over it, and the bawn wall extending E from it to the SE angle of the bawn and then N (L 13m) to where there is a doorway. The vaulted structure (int. dims 10.1m E-W; 3.7m N-S) was largely filled with rubble but it has two narrow loops, probably musket loops, on the N wall and at least one on the S wall, but two other openings in the S wall and one in the N wall directed light downwards into the plank-centred vault. There is an inserted doorway to the outside in the S wall and two large openings in the E wall, but the original entrance might be an inaccessible doorway in the W wall. The first storey of this building has three narrow loops and an inserted fireplace with brick in the S wall, the only surviving part.
The vaulted structure was built simultaneously with the remains of the bawn. There are three large slit-opes which could serve as musket-loops between the vaulted structure and the corner of the bawn to the E, and there are four slit-opes (H c. 1.1m; Wth c. 0.15m) splaying to width of c. 0.5m internally in each of two rows in the E wall (surviving H c. 4m). These are the only known remains of the bawn.

See the attached view (MO012-015_2) from a drawing of 1741.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 29 June 2018

References

Shirley, E.P. 1879 (Reprint 1988) The history of the county of Monaghan. London. Pickering.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2016 Buildings Archaeology Assessment: Possible site of Clones Castle (MO011-015----), The Diamond, Clones, Co. Monaghan. Unpublished report for Clones Community Forum. Kilkenny Archaeology

Schlegel, D. M. 2003 Lease Abstracts for the Clones Estate, County Monaghan, Clogher Record, vol. 18, No. 1, 53-84.