Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in a farmyard, in gently undulating pasture. Tower House type castle depicted in 'Dooneild' on Down Survey map of Killare parish (NLI, MS 723-4). The terrier of this parish map stated that in 'Clare, Dooneild, Rathskeagh, Killinbrack, Bishopsland Ballikenny on each of them stands a Castle' (ibid.). On this map the castle is shown standing on lands belonging to Richard Dalton in 1640. Depicted on the 1837 OS 6-inch map as a rectangular-shaped structure annotated ‘Duneel Castle’. Monument described in 1978 as a number of wall fragments some of which are incorporated into field fences. A relatively well-preserved portion of wall (approx. H 2m) is visible at the SW corner. The outer face of this wall is missing and the core is exposed. The inner face inclines gently inwards which may signify the springing of a barrel vault. On the side of the laneway there is a large piece of cut stone which appears to be part of a doorway. There is no other cut stone visible and there are no obvious earthworks noted within the vicinity. Possible tower house.

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

Date of upload: 30 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.