Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on rock outcrop on high ground in an upland area overlooking Annagh Lake to the SW and Lough Derg to the W. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as an 'old castle the walls onely standing' (Simington 1934, vol. 2, 306). John Hurly is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.). Present remains consist of a four-storey tower house (ext. dims. 12.8m E-W; 9.8m N-S; wall T 2.1m) with barrel vault over the second floor and wooden floors elsewhere. The tower is built with roughly coursed limestone rubble with base-batter visible. Only the S and W walls survive intact with wall returns of the SE and NW angles. There is a garderobe chute outlet at ground-floor level at the S end of the W wall. The original doorway in the centre of the E wall leads to a lobby with a series of small chambers directly over which were accessed off the spiral stairs. These stairs, in the SE angle, also gave access to all upper floors via a two-centred doorway with punch-dressed jambs and drafted margins. Simple slit opes with rebated sillstones for a wooden shutter lighted the spiral stairs. The garderobe in the SW angle was reached from a mural passage in the S wall; there is a slop-stone under the window in this passage. At second-floor level a secret chamber in the NW angle is accessed off the N splay of the W window embrasure. The mural passage off the spiral stairs in the S wall at mezzanine level between second and third-floor levels gives access to a garderobe in the SW angle. A doorway off the spiral stairs at the same level leads to a destroyed lobby over the doorway. The third floor is accessed from a doorway in the SE angle with a slop-stone in the S wall directly inside the doorway. An ogee-headed window reused to form a flat-headed triple-light window with lozenge-decorated jambstones of seventeenth-century date is in the centre of the S wall. There is a second secret chamber in the N splay of the destroyed W window embrasure. Mural stairs in the E wall give access to a wall-walk in the SE angle. Windows consist of single-light flat-headed, round-headed and ogee-headed examples with larger windows used in the upper floors. Wall-footings of a possible bawn wall (TN009-036003-) project out from the SE angle of the tower house and return onto the destroyed NW angle.

The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008

References

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1934 The Civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol. II: county of Tipperary - Western and Northern baronies. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.