Castleraw

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The ruins of an early 17th century house comprising a sunken area of cruciform layout, presumably a basement storey, with remains of some walls including a tall wall of 2-storey height containing a featureless opening. Built of limestone rubble and somewhat overgrown with vegetation in places.

SETTING: The ruin stands in a field with the 2-storey wall close to a minor road.

Historical information

Built in 1618-19 for Anthony Cope as recorded in Pynnar's report of that time. The unusual cross-shaped plan was derived from such examples in Cope's home area in the English midlands as Gayton and Lyveden New Building (1594), both in Northamptonshire.
Anthony Cope was the third son of Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell in Oxfordshire who had acquired the manors of Derrycreevy and Drumilly by purchase from Lord Saye and Sele, who had received them as a gift from King James I in 1610. The lands were surplus to Saye and Sele's requirements. Sir Anthony Cope, in turn, probably never came to Ireland himself, but required land to settle his two younger sons. Thus one of his sons, Anthony, built Castleraw, and eventually died there, on 10 March 1634. The castle was burnt in 1641, and was replaced sometime before 1670 by another house, since demolished, somewhere near the present Manor House in Loughgall. Anthony was ancestor of the Copes of Loughgall Manor. His brother Richard was ancestor of the Drumilly Copes. The ruin is a scheduled monument, no. Armagh 9:4.

References – Primary Sources
1. Pynnar's Report of 1618-19 (for which see Hill, Plantation of Ulster, 1877).
2. OS Map 1835, Co Armagh 9.

Secondary Sources
1. G. Hill, Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster (Belfast, 1877), p 555.
2. D.A. Chart, ed, A Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1940), p 63.
3. E.M. Jope, 'Moyry, Charlemont, Castleraw, and Richhill: Fortification to Architecture in the North of Ireland 1570-1700', Ulster Journal of Archaeology (Belfast, 1960), pp 97-123 (esp. pp 102-4, and Plate XIX).
4. DOENI, Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1987), pp 58, 150.
5. P. Reilly, Loughgall: a Plantation parish (Armagh, 1995), pp 20-22.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an important 17th century ruin which has been scheduled as an ancient monument.