For many years, the Irish Aesthete has driven past a castle in County Tipperary and wondered about its history. No need to wonder any more: the Irish Penny Journal, Vol.1, No.44, published in May 1841 carries a long and somewhat rambling account of the history of this building, Ardfinnan Castle. It stands on the site of, or close to, a religious settlement said to have been established in the seventh century by Saint Finian (hence the name Ard Fhíonáin, meaning ‘Fíonán’s height’). The journal’s anonymous author comments that ‘the traveller must have been a dull and unobserving one who, journeying between Cork and Dublin by way of Cahir, has not had his attention roused by its romantic features and an impression of its grandeur and picturesqueness made upon his memory, not easily to be effaced. Ardfinnan is indeed one of the finest scenes of its kind to be found in Ireland, and is almost equally imposing from every point of view from which it can be viewed. The Castle crowns the summit of a lofty and precipitous rock, below and around which the Suir winds it way in graceful beauty, while its banks are connected by a long and level bridge of fourteen arches which tradition states is of coeval erection with the fortress and which, at all events, is of very great antiquity. On every side the most magnificent outlines of mountain scenery form the distant back-ground; and every object which meets the eye is in perfect harmony with the general character of the scene.’ Rather like the river Suir, the text further meanders before explaining that Ardfinnan Castle was constructed in 1185 by Prince John, ‘of whom it has been remarked that he achieved nothing during his stay of eight months in Ireland but the construction of this and two other castles, namely Lismore and Tiobrad Fachtna, now Tibraghny on the Suir, which he erected with a view to the conquest of Munster. From these castles he sent parties in various directions to plunder the country; but being met by the Irish under the command of Donall O’Brien, Dermod Mac Carthy and Roderick O’Conor, they were defeated with great slaughter, four knights having been killed at Ardfinnan, after which John was glad to return to England.’ 

When the Irish Penny Journal text appeared, Ardfinnan Castle had fallen into ruin but serious damage to the building had only occurred in the 17th century. Long before then, the castle had a close association with monastic military orders,  first the Knights Templar and then the Knights Hospitaller. Ardfinnan’s first Governor, the Cambro-Norman knight Maurice de Prendergast, was also Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Ireland and in 1177 he had granted Prendergast Castle and surrounding land in his native Pembrokeshire to the order. A large circular keep immediately inside the castle’s bawn wall and beside the main gateway is said to have been constructed by the Knights Hospitaller in the early 13th century. Alterations occurred c.1450 when a square, four storey tower house was built on the south-east corner, directly above the river. The military order remained here until the upheavals of the 16th century, after which it passed through several different hands, at one point both Theobold Butler, Lord Caher and the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore disputing rights of ownership. The real trouble began during the Confederate Wars when the castle was held by its Governor, Captain David Fitzgibbon, a descendant of the White Knights and married to the widowed Joanna Butler, member of the area’s most powerful family. In early February 1659 Fitzgibbon was resident in Ardfinnan with a small force when it came under attack by the Cromwellian general Henry Ireton. Initially he was able to hold out, but once Ireton brought cannon onto a hill opposite the castle, its walls were breached his troops were able to gain access, and Fitzgibbon obliged to surrender: while his life was spared, his lands were confiscated and he was transplanted to the west of Ireland. Meanwhile, before Ireton’s army moved on and in order to ensure the castle could not fall back into the opposition’s hands, it was deliberately left in a state of semi-ruin. By 1654, the property had once again returned into the possession of the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and was leased to another member of the extensive Butler family. Despite its poor condition, once more because of its position above the river Suir and owing to the ongoing threat of a French invasion, in 1795 the British government began to use the castle as an army barracks and continued to do so until 1802. 

In Samuel Lewis’s invaluable Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), the castle at Ardfinnan is described as a ruin occupying a picturesque and elevated site above the Suir, consisting of a fortified gateway and the greater part of the exterior walls which, then as now, are roughly parallelogram in form. Engravings, such as that published in the Irish Penny Journal four years later, show Lewis’s summary description to be correct. This might have remained the case, had not a branch of the Prendergast family, thought to be descendants of Maurice de Prendergast, first Governor of the castle, taken on the property along with 15 surrounding acres. Theresa Cornwallis J West, in her book A Summer Visit to Ireland in 1846 (1847), wrote that she saw ‘scaffolding and ladders, and workmen busily repairing the damages of time; building up walls and putting in windows.’ Much of what can be seen today therefore dates from this period, when the old castle became a family home. The interiors, with their stone chimneypieces and stained glass in some of the windows, represent the taste of the mid-19th century. Meanwhile, immediately below and beside the Suir, John Mulcahy, whose father-in-law owned a similar business elsewhere in the county at Rossmore, developed a woollen mill which had ancient origins, believed to date back at least to the era when the 12th century. For a long time, the building was hugely successful, employing large numbers of local people and exporting tweeds across the world: when Edward VII – who already wore Ardfinnan cloth – came to stay at Lismore Castle in 1904, he paid a visit to the mill. It continued in operation until 1973 when the mills closed down, many of its buildings now standing empty. More than half a century earlier the Mulcahys had bought the castle and made further alterations, including the addition of a flat-roofed wing at the south-west corner as well as rewiring and plumbing the property, adding bathrooms and a heating system. While remedial work has recently been undertaken on the main roof and elsewhere, little has otherwise changed, as the castle and some 17 acres of surrounding land now come up for sale. This is such an important building, with such a long and remarkable history, that it deserves to find a sympathetic new owner, one who will appreciate the necessity of ensuring Ardfinnan Castle’s future. It took many years for the Irish Aesthete to see the place, but this was well worth the wait.

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