Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

Described as Bellanagare Castle on the 1837 ed. of the OS 6-inch map, and situated on a slight S-facing slope. Denis O'Conor received a partial return of O'Conor Don lands in 1720 and built a house here in 1727 which became the home of his son Charles O'Conor, the antiquarian during the 1750s (Martin 1992; O'Conor and Williams 2015). Bellanagare is the location of Bealach Coille recorded in 1489 (AFM vol. 4, P. 1173; O'Flanagan 1931, vol. 1, 71), which may have been a castle. The 18th century house was abandoned by the early 1830s (Weld 1832, 484-6) but it incorporates some medieval dressed stone (RO015-048003-), including a ventilator, which is now missing and is possibly from an older structure here or at the castle site (RO015-050----) c. 380m to the S. The two storey house (int. dims 13m E-W; 8.5m N-S) of five bays has a pediment on the S-facing front with the entrance at the first floor. There is an inscription 'DOC 1727' over the doorway, and there are two, two storey returns (int. dims 2.7m N-S; 2.45m E-W) at either end of the N wall. The house is at the NW angle of a walled courtyard (dims 34m N-S; 34m E-W) or bawn (RO015-048002-) defined by masonry walls (T 0.7m; max. H 3m), which does not appear to be an ancient structure.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 24 August 2010

O’Conor, K. and J. Williams 2015 Ballinagare Castle, Co. Roscommon. In Gibbons, L. and K. O’Conor 2015 Charles O’Conor of Ballinagare, 1710-1791: Life and Works. Four Courts Press, Dublin

References

Martin, E. 1992 Bellanagare. Journal of the Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society, vol. 4, 18-19.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1931 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Roscommon collected during the progress of the
Ordnance Survey in 1837. Bray.

Weld, I. 1832 Statistical survey of the county Roscommon. Dublin, Royal Dublin Society

AFM - Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year 1616, ed. and trans. John O'Donovan (7 vols., Dublin, 1851; reprint New York, 1966)