The three remaining sides of Tullomoy Castle, County Laois. Like so many other Irish ‘castles’ this is actually a tower house, possibly originating in the 16th century but then undergoing alterations in the 17th when larger windows with hood mouldings were inserted, along with the cut limestone chimneypieces with hood mouldings still visible inside some of the walls. Originally it was of three storeys over basement but the top floor is now almost entirely gone, as are the internal divisions and the eastern wall. The history of this building appears to be unknown. It may have suffered serious damage during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and their aftermath and never been repaired thereafter, or perhaps only been abandoned as a habitation some time later.
Fantastic as always. Daniel O’Byrne in his 1856 History of the Queen’s county wrote: ‘In the parish of Tullowmoy, near the ruins of Ballyadams church, is the castle of Tulla, built by a man named Billy George, an ancestor of the Georges of Mullaghmore. ‘This George was commonly called “Phubhier na Leim Shorsna,” or Billy George of the Well. ‘The castle was roofed three different times, but at three different times a tremendous whirl-blast unroofed it. We have a tradition that on Saturday nights a pooka cleaned out this castle, being the residence of a pooka.’