Category Archives: Irish Castle

Quaint and Old-Fashioned


‘Whoever has travelled by the coast road in County Antrim which connects the towns of Larne and Ballycastle, may have observed at the distance of five miles from Larne, after passing one of the boldest promontories on the entire coast, a castellated edifice, standing immediately on the roadside at the head of a beautiful and romantic bay. Nor can anyone with a taste for the picturesque have seen it – backed by an amphitheatre of mountains and fronted by the Irish Channel coast – without bestowing upon it at least a passing admiration…This castle was for many years the hospitable residence of the Shaws of Ballygally, who came originally from Greenock, in Scotland, where, from very early times, their ancestors occupied a very high position in Renfrewshire. The first of the Shaws, who came to Ireland in the beginning of the seventeenth century, was one of the Scottish settlers who were located in Ireland by King James I. In the Irish wars of 1641, the castle of Ballygally, garrisoned by its own tenantry, afforded shelter to the Protestants of the district, and in the Revolutionary wars of 1688-90, the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Show is often honourably mentioned.’
From The Architect, March 1st 1879.





James Shaw is thought to have been born around 1594, the son of Scotsman John Shaw who settled in Ireland with his family in the early 17th century and duly received a grant of land from the Earl of Antrim. One grant was made on 1st February, 1634, to ‘John Shaw, the elder, of Ballygellie, in the county of Antrim, gentleman,’ of ‘all that eighteen score acres of land in Ballygellie, aforesaid, Tarnemoney, Nogher, Carncaslen, and Corcermain’ to hold forever in fee farm, at the yearly rent of £24.  James Shaw subsequently married Isabel Brisbane, also of Scottish birth, and the couple were responsible for constructing a castle which in style very much reflects their country of origin. In form, the building is a four-storey rectangular tower with a steep gable-ended roof and at each corner cone-topped bartizans supported by corbels and flanked by little dormer windows. The castle was formerly surrounded by a bawn wall, necessary given the time and place in which it was built. Early photographs do not show the small circular turrets at the corners of the grounds, so these must be a late-19th century addition to the site. Inside, above the stone door giving access to a spiral staircase can be seen inscribed ‘GODIS PROVIDENS IS MY INHERITANS’ and the date 1625, and over this a coat of arms with the initials JS and IB, standing for James Shaw and Isabel Brisbane. This used to be on the exterior of the castle but was moved to its present location around 1760 when alterations were made to the building, some of which – such as a panelled room on the first floor and sash windows – still remain.





Thought to be the oldest continually-inhabited building in Northern Ireland, Ballygally Castle remained occupied by successive generations of the Shaw family until the early 19th century. Unfortunately a litigation over ownership of the property in the 1780s left them heavily indebted and in 1820 some 450 acres around the castle had to be sold. Thereafter it appears to have been rented to a variety of tenants. In 1834, for example, it was reported as being ‘the dwelling of the chief officer of the coastguard for the prevention of smuggling, from which it would appear that it has been subject to a complete reversal of destiny, having been supposed at one time to have been a stronghold for smuggling.’ Four decades later, the Presbyterian minister and historian Classon Porter was living there and described the castle as ‘quaint and old-fashioned but that I like, and it is very warm and comfortable, the walls being 5 or 6 feet thick so that we never feel the greatest storm that blows.’ After the First World War, Colonel William Agnew Moore, whose great-grandmother had been a Shaw, came to live in the castle, the last member of the family to do so. Within a few years, he had put the building up for sale and in 1936 it was bought by the Earl of Antrim (whose ancestor had first granted the land on which it stood to John Shaw). A local newspaper reported that the earl ‘is busy at present converting this ancient mansion into a modern hotel’ which duly opened in 1938. It was sold again in the early 1950s, this time to entrepreneur Cyril Lord (who had a carpet factory in neighbouring County Down). He refurbished and extended the property before it changed hands once more. Today Ballygally Castle continues to operate as an hotel, the late Charles Brett deeming additions to the north to be ‘unobjectionable.’ while ‘more lurid, Disneylike proposals were fortunately disallowed in 1984.’ 

 

Held Hostage



Gortnaclea Castle, County Laois is a 16th century tower house originally built by the Mac Giolla Phádraig family on a site overlooking the Gully river. It is famous for having been the place where in April 1600 Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, a long-time ally of the English crown but by then aged almost 70, was held hostage by Owny MacRory O’More. At the end of the month, O’More sent his demands to the government, which included the removal of all English garrisons from that part of the country. This stipulation – and sundry others – were not met but the earl, by then in poor health, was eventually released after the payment of £3,000 (and lived for another 16 years). Of five storeys, Gortnaclea is a typical tower house of the period but unfortunately its easterly entrance front has long since collapsed, bringing down the spiral staircase which would have been immediately inside the main door; the graceful curving wall of the staircase can be seen on the north-east corner.


A Picturesque Feature in the Landscape


Seemingly there are some 100 places around the world called Newcastle, six of them located in Ireland (one of these, in County Meath, is a couple of miles away from the more substantial settlement of Oldcastle). Newcastle, County Tipperary is one of the smaller holders of the name, being a small village seemingly of little note. But it contains two substantial mediaeval ruins, one being a large 12th/13th century church and the other the castle from which Newcastle takes its name. 




The ‘new’ castle in County Tipperary presumably replaced an older one, but there does not appear to be any information about the latter. What remains can be seen close to the banks of the river Suir, the navigable possibilities of which was one reason for the choice of this site. The castle is believed to have been built for the Prendergast family, the first of whom Maurice de Prendergast, was among the Cambro-Norman knights who accompanied Richard de Clare (otherwise known as Strongbow) to Ireland and then settled here.  Around 1230 his grandson, William de Prendergast exchanged lands he had inherited in what is now County Limerick with Jeffrey de Marisco for those in this part of Tipperary. There may already have been some kind of castle already erected but the ruins seen today were certainly enhanced and enlarged by the Prendergasts who remained in occupation until the mid-17th century. In the aftermath of the Confederate Wars, Edmond Prendergast’s estates were taken from him by the Cromwellian government and the link with Newcastle broken. Edmond Prendergast’s grandson, Sir Thomas Prendergast, who grew up in poverty, led an extraordinarily adventurous life. Having fought in the service of James II, he allied himself to William III after the Treaty of Limerick. A Roman Catholic, he was involved in a Jacobite plot to kill the king, but then switched sides and provided evidence that helped to convict many of his former fellow-plotters. He then seems to have conformed to the Established Church and was rewarded with lands around Gort,  County Galway that provided an annual income of £500. Created a baronet in 1699, he acted as MP for Monaghan borough, 1703-09 while also serving in the army, rising to the rank of brigadier-general in February 1709. However, the following September he was killed at the Battle of Malplaquet.




The castle at Newcastle consists of a number of buildings enclosed within what remains of a bawn wall; among the more notable extant structures is a large vaulted hall and a circular tower, both relatively intact although much of the rest of the property is in poor condition. Quite when the castle was abandoned is unclear. One suggestion is that it was badly damaged in the late 1640s/early 1650s at a time when the Prendergasts were displaced. But the ruin of so many buildings in Ireland is attributed to Cromwellian forces that it is hard to know whether or not such was the case in this instance. Whatever the truth, the lands on which it stands were eventually granted to the Perry family, whose main residence from the early 18th century onwards was some ten miles north at Woodrooff, County Tipperary. In 1837 Samuel Lewis wrote that the old castle ‘forms a very picturesque feature in the landscape.’ Such remains the case today. 

Prominently Located




After Monday’s post about Tikincor Castle, County Waterford (see The House at the Head of the Weir « The Irish Aesthete), here are the remains of another early fortified house: Ballycowan Castle, County Offaly. Prominently sited on a rock outcrop immediately north of the Grand Canal, the building seemingly occupies the site of an earlier castle belonging to the O’Molloys but much of the present structure was erected here by Thomas Morres in 1589. Climbing four storeys to a string course above which soar a series of tall, slender chimneys, the castle displays more visible evidence of its fortified character than does Tikincor, having no windows on the lowest level and a number of bartizans along the roofline. Ballycowan changed hands c.1625 when it came into the possession of Sir Jasper Herbert and his wife Mary Finglas, who extended the building to the east and placed a plaque carrying their arms above a new doorway here. Seemingly the castle suffered damage during the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, which is when the south-west side of the building collapsed. Not least thanks to its location, Ballycowan remains one of the most familiar ruins in this part of the country.



Inside the Pale


The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Knights Hospitaller, was a Mediaeval military order founded in the 12th century. The order came to have a number of bases, called preceptories, in Ireland, one of which was located at Kilteel, County Kildare. There seems to be some confusion about when this was established, and by whom: it may have been Gerald FitzMaurice, first Lord of Offaly, who died in 1204, or his son Maurice FitzGerald, the second lord who died in 1257. It must have been an important centre for the order, since three general chapters were held there during the 14th century. However, with the onset of the suppression of religious orders in the 16th century, Kilteel Preceptory was surrendered to the English authorities in 1540 and two years later granted to Thomas Alen, brother of Sir John Alen, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Thereafter it fell into decay and little now remains of the buildings other than a few truncated stone columns, parts of a former gatehouse and the outline of a substantial enclosure. More impressive are the adjacent ruins of Kilteel Castle.





Kilteel stands on the boundary of the Pale, that area around Dublin which in the later Middle Ages remained under the control of the English government. Famously, in order to provide protection for its inhabitants, in 1429 King Henry VI offered a grant of £10 to every man within the Pale who built a castle over the next ten years. These castles, usually square or rectangular and several storeys high, are commonly known in Ireland as tower houses, and while they were being constructed prior to the king’s grant – and are similar to the Peel Houses found on the border separating England and Scotland – many of them date from the 15th century onwards. Such would appear to be the case with Kilteel Castle, which measures around 26 by 20 feet and rises five storeys to a height of 46 feet. The building is distinguished from many other examples by a curved projecting staircase in one corner and beside this a two-storey gate house with arched entrance. Immediately behind the tower houses is a large rectangular space, now used as a farmyard but perhaps demarcating the former bawn enclosure. An image published in the Dublin Penny Journal in October 1833 shows a two-storied gabled house, perhaps dating from the 17th century, on the other side of the gatehouse. Some of the outer walls of this building survive, sections of which are fronted with slates. 





Like the Knights Hospitallers preceptory, Kilteel Castle passed into the hands of Thomas Alen in the 1540s and his family appear to have remained owners of the property until the second half of the 17th century (although, according to Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, they were still claiming tithes there in 1837). However, repeated attacks on the building took their toll on its condition. It was raided and burnt by Rory O’More in both 1573 and 1574 but presumably remained in sufficiently good condition for the 11th Earl of Kildare to station 50 horsemen and 100 foot soldiers there in 1580 during the Second Desmond Rebellion. But in the aftermath of the following century’s Confederate Wars, the Civil Survey of 1654-56 could report that the parish of Kilteel contained ‘One Castle…wch in the year 1640 was valued to be worth sixty pounds butt being since ruined is now valued at ffourty pounds.’ In the second half of the 17th century, Kilteel Castle came into the possession of the Earl of Tyrconnell but following his support of James II the property was taken from him and acquired by the Hollow Sword Blade Company before being sold on in turn to Sir William Fownes. His descendants in turn disposed of Kilteel in 1838, by which time the old castle had long since ceased to be used as any kind of residence. 

The Real Deel



The ruins of the late 18th century Deel Castle, otherwise known as Castle Gore, in County Mayo have featured here before (see Sent Up in Flames « The Irish Aesthete) but rather confusingly the remains of a second, older building with the same name stand close by. The original Deel Castle – which might be classified as the real Deel – is a tower house sitting above the river Deel, thought to date from the 16th century when constructed by the Bourke family, then dominant in this part of the country. Like so many other such buildings, it is rectangular but larger than usual, of four storeys and with a substantial bartizan on the south-west corner of the roofline, above which rise tall, narrow chimneystacks. As is also typical of tower houses, there is only one point of access, a modest arched doorcase on the west side. It remained in the possession of the Bourke family until the late 17th century when, after Colonel Thomas Bourke had fought on the side of King James in the Williamite Wars, the property was forfeited and granted to Sir Arthur Gore.




Born in London, Paul Gore (created a baronet in 1622) had come to Ireland in the late 16th century in the service of Elizabeth I as commander of a troop of horse and eventually settled in County Donegal, representing Ballyshannon for a number of years in the Irish House of Commons. Arthur Gore (created a baronet in 1662) was his second son, and likewise both a soldier and politician, becoming High Sheriff of both Mayo and County Galway, and later of Leitrim. Having settled in Mayo, he received the Bourkes‘ former property, Castle Deel and in due course, his son having predeceased him, passed this to his grandson, also called Arthur Gore. When Mrs Delany visited the place in 1732, she noted, ‘tis an old castle patched up and very irregular, but well fitted up and good handsome rooms within. The master of the house, Arthur Gore, a jolly red-faced widower, has one daughter, a quiet thing that lives in the house with him; his dogs and horses are as dear to him as his children, his laugh is hearty, though his jests are course.’ The second baronet’s son, yet another Arthur, was created Earl of Arran in 1762. It would appear that the family continued to live in Deel Castle but towards the end of the 18th century, the estate was leased to James Cuff, first (and last) Lord Tyrawley who built the now-ruined house within sight of the old castle. Cuff’s mother Elizabeth was a sister of Lord Arran, which helps to explain why he should have been granted a lease on the place. Lord Tyrawley had no legitimate heirs, although he had two illegitimate sons by an actress, one of whom, James Duff, lived in the new Deel Castle until his death in 1828, after which that building reverted back to the third Earl of Arran. As for the old castle, it was occupied by Colonel St George Cuff, thought to have been the illegitimate son of James Cuff; the colonel’s wife Louisa Maria Knox Gore, was descended in the maternal line from the second Earl of Arran, making the family connection clearer. It was only after the colonel’s death in 1883 that the old castle likewise returned to the Gores and remained with them until after 1921 when the new house was burnt by the IRA and left the ruin still seen today.




As already mentioned, the original Deel Castle was a substantial tower house. To the east of this, possibly as early as the 17th century, an extension was built which was probably further improved in the 18th century. A bartizan on the south-east corner of the extension certainly suggests an early date, since it would come from a time when the occupants of the building would consider themselves vulnerable to attack. In any case, this section is of three storeys and five bays, with a limestone Gibbsian doorcase on the groundfloor. The outline of a gable on the eastern side of the facade indicates that a further building once stood here, perhaps to match that which still extends forward immediately beyond the tower house to the west, thereby creating a courtyard in front of the building. Little remains inside either the original or the later structure, the roof long gone, along with the various floors, windows and chimneypieces: the external walls alone now survive. This decay has occurred only in the past 100 years since, unlike its neighbour, Deel Castle was not burnt during the early 1920s but still occupied. Only afterwards was it abandoned, and left to fall into the present state of ruin. 


Remembering a Valiant Woman


In 1598, at the age of 18 Lettice FitzGerald married Sir Robert Digby, a Warwickshire landowner. Born in 1580, Lettice was the only child of Gerald FitzGerald, eldest son of the 11th Earl of Kildare. However, her father died around the time of her birth, leaving her, she would claim, as heir general to the great FitzGerald estates. Her cousin, who had become 14th Earl of Kildare, begged to differ and so in 1602 Lettice and her husband embarked on a long and costly law suit – the Jacobean equivalent of Jarndyce v Jarndyce – in pursuit of her entitlements. During the course of a legal battle that lasted almost two decades, they were able to prove that the will of Lettice’s grandfather had been fraudulently altered after his death in order to disinherit her, but still the fight continued. Eventually, in 1619 King James I, while rejecting Lettice’s claim to be the 11th Earl’s heir general, granted her and her heirs the manor of Geashill, comprising some 30,000 acres in King’s County (now Offaly), thereby partitioning the FitzGerald patrimony. The following year, the king recognised Lettice as Baroness Offaly for life, on the understanding that after her death the title would revert to the Earls of Kildare.





At the centre of the Geashill estate lay a castle, originally erected in the late 12th or early 13th century by Maurice FitzGerald, second Baron Offaly. For a considerable period during the Middle Ages, this property had been in the hands of the O’Dempsey clan, but was back under the control of the FitzGeralds by the time Lettice was born. It is here that she chose to live following the death of her husband, Sir Robert Digby, in 1618 and the confirmation by the crown of her right to the estate soon afterwards. By then in her early 60s, Lettice was in residence at Geashill Castle at the onset of the Confederate Wars in 1641 and that found herself besieged by the O’Dempseys, to whom she was related. They offered her and her family safe passage if the castle was surrendered, otherwise it would be burnt down. In the face of this threat, she replied ‘Being free from offending His Majesty, or doing wrong to any of you, I will live and die innocently, and will do my best to defend my own, leaving the issue to God.’ The siege was eventually lifted, but renewed the following spring when the attackers arrived with a make-shift cannon: it exploded at the first shot, as did a second attempt using the same device. Meanwhile, as Terry Clain notes in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, Lettice  ‘affected an aristocratic sang-froid in the face of imminent peril.’ Eventually, in October 1642 she was persuaded by allies to leave the property and subsequently retired to live on her late husband’s property in Warwickshire, where she died in 1658. Geashill Castle and the surrounding estate was inherited by her grandson, the second Baron Digby (her eldest son having predeceased her), whose heirs continued to own the property until the last century. 





At some date, perhaps as early as the 17th century, the Digbys built a new house to the immediate east of the old castle, part of which was most likely incorporated into the structure, where material from the abandoned building was probably also reused. The house appears to have been substantial but somewhat plain, of seven bays and two storeys, with a series of service extensions and yards further to the east. The south front had short projecting wings on either side of the central three bays creating a shallow forecourt. In 1860, Dublin architect James Rawson Carroll remodelled the house, adding a porch on the south side, a canted bay window on the ground floor of the north side and cambered arches over the windows on the west. The Digbys chose to live on their English estate, Sherborne Castle in Dorset, so the house at Geashill was occupied by a succession of agents who looked after the family’s Irish property; in the opening decades of the last century, the agent was Reginald Digby, a cousin of Lord Digby. In 1922, Mr Digby needed to go to London for an operation, but was unwilling to leave Geashill Castle unattended, aware that the place would be vulnerable to assault, this being at the height of the Civil War. However, eventually he was required to leave and on August 19th 1922, the building was attacked and burnt. Like other house owners whose property suffered in this way, the Digbys applied for compensation from the courts but because nobody was resident in Geashill Castle at the time, it was argued that the family was entitled to only minimal funding. In consequence, the house was not rebuilt but left as a ruin. Under the terms of the Wyndham Act of 1903, most of the ancient estate had already been sold to tenants and in 1926 the Land Commission took over the demesne, thereby ending a link with this part of the country that stretched back not just to plucky Lettice Digby in the 17th century but as far as the O’Dempseys in the 14th century. 

All that is Fantastically Eccentric in Architecture


‘It was in the hall of this Castle, then his principal residence, that James, first Duke and twelfth Earl of Ormond, received, as he sat at dinner, on 23d October 1641, intelligence of the great rebellion, in which he so eminently distinguished himself as Commander of the Royal Army. Since that period, none of the Ormond family have resided in Carrick-Castle, which is, however, maintained in good repair, and occupied by a private gentleman, who has evinced excellent taste in the alterations which he has made in the building without impairing the character of its architecture. It stands upon the banks of the river Suir, and near the town of Carrick-on-Suir. This castle was built in the year 1309, by Edmond le Boteler, or Butler, whose son was created Earl of Ormond in 1328. By him it was granted, in 1336, together with its demesnes, to the Franciscan monks of the Abbey of Carrick-on-Suir. But these venerable personages, who probably attached more value to the lands than to the fortress, appear to have permitted it to fall into decay, since we find that, in 1445, Sir Edmund Butler purchased the premises from the Monks, and rebuilt the Castle and Bridge.’
From Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland, 1830






‘Prior to starting to Waterford, let us not fail to view the fine old castle of the Ormonds, built in 1309, and still remaining in the family. The antique bridge, from the right bank of the river, just above the weir, presents all that is fantastically eccentric in architecture, the ivied house in the centre imparting to it an air of pleasing novelty. The parish chapel is said to have been built by the Ormonds, and the tower attached to the modern building bears proof of high antiquity. We hope tradition speaks “no scandal against Queen Elizabeth,” as the guide points out the grave of Thomas Butler, the putative natural son of her maiden Majesty.’
From The Tourist’s Illustrated Hand-Book for Ireland, 1859






‘I chanced that day to be at Carrick, and I walked to see the old castle. It is beautifully situated in a secluded lawn overhanging the Suir, at a distance of a few hundred yards from the eastern end of the town. I could not ascertain the date of the older, or castellated part of the edifice: the more modern part was erected by Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, in 1565, which date is displayed on the wall of the hall; on which, likewise, there is a rude fresco representing Queen Elizabeth, with the initials E.R. On the opposite wall there is another fresco of the founder, who is said by the tradition of the castle to have found favour as a lover of that princess. The tradition found its way into France, and the family of Lord Galmoye is stated, in a French genealogical work, to descend from her Majesty and her Irish admirer…The curious old mansion founded by “Black Tom Butler” is still habitable. Its front presents a long row of gables in the fashion of Elizabethan manor-houses, with a large Oriel window over the porch. Its large deserted chambers are just as spectral personages might regularly honour with their visits. I accordingly asked if the house was haunted, and was told by the person who showed it, that in the days of the Ormonds, a ghost had been constantly there – a utilitarian ghost, apparently; for he used to officiate as volunteer shoeblack, and to discharge other duties of domestic labour.
The largest apartments are in the upper storey. There is a noble drawing room about sixty feet long, which contains two decorated chimneys. Whatever be the worth of the Galmoye tradition, old “Tom Butler” as the guide familiarly called him, was anxious to record his devotion to Elizabeth; and this he has done by the frequent repetition of her Majesty’s initials and arms in the quaint stucco ornaments of the ceiling.’
From Ireland and her Agitators by W.J. O’Neill, 1867. 

Replete with Memories


Lisronagh, County Tipperary is today not so much a village as a hamlet, but this was not always the case. According to Samuel Lewis, in 1837 it had a population of 981, whereas in the census of 2016, the number of inhabitants had fallen to 184. The latter figure is even a fraction of what it had been in the Middle Ages: surviving documentation from 1333 show Lisronagh’s population likely exceeded 400. At that time, the land here was held by Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of a descendant of William de Burgh, the Anglo-Norman knight who in the late 12th century had acquired vast estates in this part of the country. William de Burgh is thought to have built some kind of fortified structure at Lisronagh, probably of wood, but this was probably later replaced by a stone castle. That building is not what is seen on the site today, since the earlier structure appears to have been destroyed in the 15th century by Edmond Butler, eighth Baron Dunboyne and Seneschal of Tipperary. 





Lisronagh Castle, or what remains of it, is a 16th century tower house. A document dated 1530 in the collection of the National Library of Ireland shows the grant by one Richard Howet to Piers Butler, Earl of Ossory (later eighth Earl of Ormond) ‘of the tenement of the castle of Lisronagh.’ The present building may have been built thereafter, and remained the property of the Butler family at least into the latter part of the 17th century. When and how it fell into disrepair does not appear known. A large opening close to the base of the east wall (which faces the adjacent road) suggests this was the original entrance, although that is around the corner on the north side. High above the arched doorcase are corbels that would once have supported the now-lost machiolation; also largely gone are the window stones, presumably removed at some date. Internally, the tower house follows the usual pattern with a large, vaulted chamber of the ground floor. A flight of stairs to the immediate right of the entrance leads to the floors above, one of which retains a fireplace but otherwise little of the interior decoration survives. 





Immediately north of Lisronagh Castle is an abandoned church. Dedicated to St John the Baptist, it dates from 1831 when constructed with the aid of funds from the Board of First Fruits, and on the site of a Medieval building (presumably serving the 400-plus populace recorded as having been here in the 1330s). The church very much conforms to the Board of First Fruits typology, having a three-bay nave with access at the west end beneath a two-stage bell tower. The entrance features a handsome stone carved Tudor arch but otherwise there is little decoration and certainly nothing inside, which has been given over to vegetation (as has the eastern end of the church). Services ceased here a century ago, in 1923, and the building subsequently became roofless and open to the elements. So there they now stand, side by side, two historic properties, both abandoned, both replete with memories of the past.

Still in Use



The first St Johns to come to Ireland were of Anglo-Norman origin and settled here in the 13th century, many of them in what is now County Tipperary. It is, therefore, not surprising to find one of the places in which they established themselves came to be called St Johnstown, or that this now contains the remains of what was once a substantial tower house: St Johnstown Castle. 





St Johnstown Castle dates from some time in the later 15th/early 16th century when many such edifices were being constructed. While the precise year remains unknown, the man responsible for commissioning the building does not, since inserted above the main entrance on the east side of the building is a large carved panel, the centre of which is occupied by a shield divided into quarters: two sets of six scallop shells diagonally face two sets of three fishes. Around the shield, and onto the surrounding wall, raised lettering carries the following inscription ‘Robert De Sero Johe Ons De Cualeagh, Lismoynan, Scadanstown Et  socius Illuis Plebis Fecit.’ (Robert St John, Lord of Cooleagh, Lismoynan, Scadanstown, and a friend of his people had me built). Of rough-hewn limestone from a local quarry, the now-roofless, five-storey tower house is some 60 feet high and measures 35 feet from east to west, and a little over 29 feet from north to south. There are chimney stacks on the north and south sides, and substantial bartizans wrapping around the north-east and south-west corners. While the lower floors have only narrow slits to let in light, more substantial window openings exist on the upper levels





It would appear that at some date during the upheavals of the 17th century the St Johns were displaced from this property, which then passed into other hands; by the second half of the 18th century, it was owned by one Matthew Jacob, whose only daughter and heiress, Anne, in 1782 married the M.P. Richard Pennefather of New Park. St Johnstown Castle was subsequently inherited by one of the couple’s sons, Matthew Pennefather but by 1837 Samuel Lewis could refer to it as being ‘the property of James Millet Esq who has a modern house in its immediate vicinity.’ Millet died in 1850, after which there does not seem to be much information about what happened to the place. But the ‘modern house’ mentioned by Lewis is of interest, since it looks to be a late 18th/early 19th century building with pretensions towards grandeur: lying to the immediate north of the tower house, it is of seven bays and two storeys with one bay, single-storey wings to either side.  Although the site is now accessed via the yard behind the house, originally there was a drive that swept through the parkland to the south and then arrived at the main, east-facing main entrance, with a fine carriage arch leading to the aforementioned yard on one side. While the tower house has long since been abandoned, the same is not the case for the later building, albeit this now rather dilapidated. A fascinating example of a site that, while undergoing alterations, has remained in use since the Middle Ages.