Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

Cloncullen Castle mentioned as a castle in 'Clunicully' in the terrier of the 1655 Down Survey map of Farbill barony (NLI MS 723-4). The castle is depicted as a tower house type structure on the 1655 Down Survey barony map where it is shown standing on lands belonging in 1640 to Sir Luke Fitzgerald (ibid.). Situated on a rise, in gently undulating pasture, 60m N of townland boundary in area of recent forestry plantation. Depicted on the 1837 ed. OS 6-inch map as a rectangular-shaped structure. Not depicted on the revised 1913 ed. OS 25-inch map. Castle site of c. 50m to NW of the location shown on the 1837 OS map. Monument described in 1983 as an irregular-shaped stony mound consisting of large chunks of masonry. The size and nature of the structure cannot be determined from the visible remains. No decorative or worked stone visible. A building (WM020-107001-) is located to the W and earthworks extend to S and W of the castle ruins. Traces of a roughly rectangular-shaped cropmark are visible on Digital Globe aerial photography.

Compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien.

Date of upload: 08 July 2019

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.