House - indeterminate date

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on rock outcrop in a mountainous region with a nearby house site (TN034-025005) to the S and a ringwork (TN034-025004) to the NE. The poorly preserved remains of a two-storey with attic, gable-ended, single-pile, L-plan, seventeenth-century house (ext. dims. NW-SE 17.6m; NE-SW 19.75m; wall T 0.93m) built with roughly coursed limestone rubble. It appears to be a two-roomed house with a projecting angle tower at the W angle. The NE gable is destroyed along with the E end of the SE wall. The main entrance (now destroyed) is indicated by a bar-slot in the centre of the SE wall. This gave access to the ground floor which had a central fireplace in the SW gable with a wall-oven off the S splay of the fireplace. All floors were wooden and were carried in the thickness of the wall. There are two large flat-headed windows with wooden lintels off-centre to the S in the SE wall. Wall-niches cut out of natural rock outcrop are visible in the NW wall. The projecting angle tower from the W angle of the building contains the stairs which accessed the first floor. This tower was not accessed from the ground floor but from a flat-headed doorway in the centre of the NW wall at first-floor level. Two flat-headed fireplaces are visible at first-floor level, one in the SW gable and the second at the N end of the NW wall. A tall rectangular chimney stack projects from the external face of the building. There is an irregular-shaped bawn area (TN034-025002) enclosed by an earth and stone bank with a possible entrance gap at SE. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as a 'castle and the walls of a stone house and some thatcht cabbins' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 89). Richard Bourke is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.).

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