Castleboy

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Tall split stone rubble fragment of the SE corner of a former tower house set within a low lying field, off the Portaferry Road in the townland of Castleboy. What remains of this building possibly constitutes a turret which (according the authors of the 1966 Archaeological survey of Co. Down) was once attached to a tower of rectangular plan which had a similar turret at its NE corner. The present ruin stands c.10.5m tall with a small upper level opening. The ‘quoins’ have been removed from ruin and what elements remain of the rest of the walls are now overgrown. This ruin stands c.90m SE of the site of the medieval church of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Historical information

The authors of the Archaeological Survey of Co. Down (1966) suggest that this castle is, as with many other Irish tower houses, of fifteenth century origin. Its name ‘Castleboy’ (the yellow castle) may indicate that the original owner was a Gaelic or Gaelicised lord. The first
references to the castle itself do not commence until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries when it featured on various maps, though the earliest indication of its being inhabited only occurs in a Gaelic poem of c.1617. By the later seventeenth century, however, the castle had been abandoned and was described by William Montgomery in 1683 as ‘a great ruinous pyle’. By the 1830s all that remained, so recorded the OS Memoirs, was a ‘ruined fragment’.

References- Primary sources
1 'Antrym and Downe, AD 1610, by John Speed'. Reproduced in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, series 1, vol. I (1853) between pp. 123-4. [Speed’s map shows Castleboy.]
2 'Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe', ed. Tadhg O’Donnchadha (Dublin 1931). [‘The Book of Clandeboy’ contains a poem written c.1617 which makes reference to Castleboy.]

Secondary sources
1 Montgomery’s MSS ‘History of the Ards’ (1683), p. 6-7. [Original MS in the Linenhall Library, Belfast].
2 Walter Harris 'The Ancient and Present State of The County of Down' (Dublin 1744), p. 67.
3 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 25.
4 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 27.
5 'Archaeological Survey of County Down' (Belfast, 1966), p. 230.
6 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', pp. 75-78..
7 Environment and Heritage Service SMR Dow 25.16

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Somewhat precarious looking tall split rubble fragment of a former tower house situated on the edge of a field.