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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Coosan, County Westmeath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Coosan, 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
Coosan
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
‘Coosan Castle’
Latest-edition OS map
‘Coosan Castle (Site of)’
Coordinates
53.44638, -7.93321
SMR number
WM029-001----

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

Site of 16th century O’Brien castle probably a tower house that was visited in 1979 and described as following: ‘Nothing is now visible of any structure or enclosure. The nearby field boundaries are modern field fences’ (SMR file). A dry stone wall forms the W boundary of the field in which the castle was situated. A new school has been built in the adjoining field to the W of the castle site. On the 1837 ed. OS 6-inch map Coosan Castle is depicted as a rectangular building aligned E-W with field boundaries running off the SE and SW angles of the castle. No castle building is depicted at this location on the revised 1876 ed. OS 6-inch map or on the 1910 ed. OS 25-inch map. Coosan Castle was the residence of Donell Reogh O’Brian who died on the 6th of February 1599/1600 (Nicholls 1970, 114). During his lifetime Donell O’Brian along with his younger brother Many O’Brian of Cornamagh helped ‘his said brother to build and make upp a castle’ at Coosan (Nicholls 1970, 114).

Compiled by: Caimin O’Brien

Date of upload: 08 May 2014

References

Nicholls, K.W. 1970 Some Documents on Irish Law and Custom in the Sixteenth Century. Analecta Hibernica 26, 105-129.

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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