House - 16th/17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in the NW quadrant of ringwork (RO051-047002-). It may have been built by McKeoghs since land here were held by Shane McKeogh (died 1618) and in 1638 by Edmund Mc Colla McKeogh of Ardmullan (Moore 1978, 60). In 1641 Edmund Mc Colla held 150 acres at Dundonnel, most of it unprofitable, together with 64 acres at Shean, but the Dundonnel property and most of the Shean land was owned by Sir Thomas Newcommen by the 1660s (Simington 1949, 104-05).

The house is a rectangular structure (ext. dims 13.9m WNW-ESE; 8.15m NNE-SSW) of three bays and two storeys with an attic surviving complete, except for much of the N wall and the quoinstones. The entrance was on the N wall and there is evidence of four destroyed lights on the ground floor and four gun-loops at the angles. The ground floor has a destroyed fireplace in the E gable but there is no evidence of a stairs. The first floor has destroyed fireplaces in the E and W gables and three windows in the S wall. The attic has two gun-loops in the E gable and a fireplace in the W (Curley 2011, 56). There are two diamond-shaped chimney-stacks on each gable and corbels from a machicolation over the NE angle. (Curley 2016, 60-1)

See the attached image taken from the S.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 8 January, 2015

References

Moore, A. 1978 MacKeoghs of Moyfin. (Part 2) Journal of the Old Athlone Society 2 (5), 56-70.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1949 Books of survey and distribution. County of Roscommon. Dublin. Stationery Office.

Curley, D. P. 2011 A study of Dundonnell Castle, Co. Roscommon. Unpublished M.A. thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Curley, D. P. 2016 Dundonnell Castle, Co. Roscommon: a neglected and misunderstood monument in the Irish Landscape. Journal of the County Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society, vol. 13, 58-64.