Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

On a slight rise on the flood-plain of the River Shannon, c. 150m from the river at Lanesborough where there was a bridge (RO037-005----) from 1140 AD. Walter de Lacy started to build a castle at Ath Liagh in 1220, and in 1227 a castle was completed by Geoffry Mares, but this was probably an earth and timber castle and may have been in Co. Longford (LF017-003002-).
This tower house, which was known as Caisleán Maol, has few historical references, although the abbot of Cloontuskert (RO037-001001-) possessed the castle of Lanesborough, then called Boalalege (Ballyleague), and six cabins (RO037-008----) in 1571 (O'Flanagan 1931, vol. 1, 49), which remain unlocated. By 1596 the castle had been lost by Irriell O'Farrel to Irish rebels (Cronin 1980, 117). Ballyleague castle is depicted and named on the Down Survey barony map (1655-6) of Rathcline, Co. Longford.
Rectangular structure (int. dims. 8.8m N-S; 5.6m E-W) with largely robbed quoins surviving to the second floor under the N-S vault. The destroyed entrance is at the S end of the E wall which led through a projecting and now destroyed tower which probably also contained the stairs, into the ground floor. There is a destroyed fireplace and two horizontal gun-loops in the the E wall with two gun-loops and a large hole in the W wall. The N wall has a large destroyed window and the S has a gun-loop and a large window. The first floor has a fireplace and two gun-loops in the E wall, and two fine round-headed lights in the S wall. The W and N walls have two destroyed windows and a single light. The second storey has a fireplace in the E wall and robbed windows in the other walls.

See the attached general view from the S (001) and a window at the first floor in the S wall (002).

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 3rd June, 2011.

References

Cronin, T. 1980 The Elizabethan colony in Co. Roscommon. In Murtagh, H. Irish midland studies: essays in commemoration of N.W. English, 107-20. Old Athlone Society.

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.