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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Laragh (Moygoish By.), County Westmeath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Laragh, County Westmeath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Laragh (Moygoish By.)
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.56811, -7.51871
SMR number
WM011-120----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on low-lying grassland overlooked by gently rising ground to the SW. Nunnery (WM011-121---) 200m to NE. A rectangular shaped area (approx. dims. 20m NW-SE; 25m NE-SW) enclosed by an earthen bank and shallow external fosse marks the site of Laragh Castle which is depicted as a tower house type structure on the 1654-9 Down Survey map of Kilmacnevan parish where it is shown standing on the lands of Robert Fitzgerald, an 'Irish Papist' (NLI, MS 723-4). The terrier of this parish map recorded that there 'are three Castles in this Parrish lately ruinous vizt. in Emper (WM010-002----) one, in Ballintue (WM010-040001-) one and at Laragh one' (ibid.). The NW side of the enclosure has been largely levelled. Traces of cultivation ridges are visible running NE-SW across the interior. This enclosure is at the centre of a complex of earthworks which covers an area measuring approximately 4 hectares. There is a possible hollow way running NW-SE, 40m to N and an earthen mound 80mto NNE

Compiled by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 28 August 2017

References

NLI, MS 723-4 - National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey for the County of Westmeath, attested by W. Petty, in 1659. Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 67 maps with accompanying terriers in two volumes, 1786-7. Dublin.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Castle - tower house in Westmeath All County Westmeath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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