Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

In flat, poorly drained grassland with good views in all directions. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'one small castle wantinge repaire with fower Cabbyns' (Simington 1934 vol. 2, 95), in the possession of Connor O'Dwyer of Ballagh (ibid.). Described in the OS letters as a square castle of which the N and E walls missing except a portion of the SE angle and measured 29 feet 4 inches [9.4m] E-W by 29 feet [8.8m] N-S, with walls forty feet [12m] high and 6 feet 6 inches [1.95m] thick, with a pointed doorway on the E wall near the SE angle (O'Flanagan 1930 vol. 1, 103). Today the building is missing its SE angle and E doorway and consists of a rectangular masonry structure (ext. dims. 8.2m N-S;7.6m E-W; wall T 1.7m) of which only the partial remains of the W and S walls survive (approx. H 13m). It was built of roughly coursed limestone rubble with dressed quoin stones and a slight base-batter (H 2.1m; Wth 0.3m). It stands three storeys high, and had a barrel vault over the first floor and a wooden floor over the ground floor which was carried on large joist holes (H above floor 3.2m) still visible in the W wall. The main hall was the chamber over the vault which had the best and largest windows in the form of a twin-light ogee-headed window set in the centre of the S and W walls of which only the S window partially survives with evidence of a decorated spandrel. There is good quality arcading on the inner face of the W wall at first-floor level, a destroyed wall-walk carried on corbels visible on the inner face of the W wall and a destroyed bartizan at the SW angle at wall-walk level, of which only the corbels survive. A double-splayed single-light window is set into the centre of the S and W walls at ground-floor level and single-light flat-headed windows in the centre of the S and W walls at first-floor level. There is no surviving evidence of any doorway or stairs. Three wall niches survive at ground-floor level in the S wall and two in the W wall.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 26 August 2011

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.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1930 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Tipperary collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1840. Bray.