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Seen & Found
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AngryHippie wrote: »Perhaps something to do with the adjacent church ?
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,573392,681435,7,9
Or the marked Castle (site of) to the east
Must be some relation..
Some local history:
Found a Reference here to castle in Castletownara, the parish in question, essentially a Eulogy to the Lord, one Mac I-Brien of Arra in 1601 AD.
Looks like his son Murtogh was the Anglican Bishop of Killaloe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murtogh_O%27Brien-Arra
Here's Ballad/Poem about the O'Briens of Ara: http://www.archive.org/stream/poemsofthomasdav00davi#page/n131/mode/2up/search/ara
The Archaeological record has assigned the following to the Fortified house:
Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as the 'castle of castletowne situated close by the shannon together with a Barbicon(i.e gatehouse) and a slate house' (Simington 1934, vol. 2, 153). Donogh O Bryen is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.).
I'm thinking that the "Castle" observed in the 1830 osi was possibly the gatehouse to the O'Brien's castle, and that this rectangular feature was potentially the actual castle site, the castle itself is likely to have been destrioyed by Cromwell. There's a fortified house very close by, possibly built by the post cromwell estate owners, the Parkers, who may have robbed out the original castle walls to contruct their own dwelling, leaving only earthworks behind.0 -
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I'm from the area and will be down that way this weekend if I can be of any assistance.
The nearby church is full of graves of the Parker family and also these unusual grave slabs. http://www.mythicalireland.com/other/skullandcrossbones.php
You didn't spot anything else unusual around that area?
It'd be great to see if there's any remains of the "Castle" listed on the OSI maps, to see if it fits with being a potential gatehouse.. Any sort of feed back would be great..
The following is a map (c1650) depicts the castle to north of the church, with what could be the "eight thatched tenements" forming what looks to be street in between.. Which goes against the hypothesis of the rectangular feature being a castle at this time. Implying that the fortified house (http://binged.it/QJDwfY) was the O'Brien castle in this period...
Of note though is the area just to the south called "Balliwilliam", which to my mind has norman connotations... So Rectangular feature could be an early moated site?0 -
It'd be great to see if there's any remains of the "Castle" listed on the OSI maps, to see if it fits with being a potential gatehouse.. Any sort of feed back would be great..
The following is a map (c1650) depicts the castle to north of the church, with what could be the "eight thatched tenements" forming what looks to be street in between.. Which goes against the hypothesis of the rectangular feature being a castle at this time. Implying that the fortified house (http://binged.it/QJDwfY) was the O'Brien castle in this period...
Of note though is the area just to the south called "Balliwilliam", which to my mind has norman connotations... So Rectangular feature could be an early moated site?
Looking at the map and from knowing the area its not (well pretty obviously) to scale.
If you check out the old 25" maps here http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,573620,681321,7,9 - the castle is "site of" rather than "in ruins" on the 6" map. Therefore I wonder did they know where the site of the older castle was? This opens the possibility as you point out above to it being your earthwok.
In regards to the long "street" on the map, I'm wondering is this perhaps a new road that was built leading up to Castlelough house. Personally I always thought that this road was very straight (noticeably so compared to every other road in the vicinity)
There is an tower-house and a mill to the north of the church. The church dates to the 16th / 17th. There are some old ruins attached to the tower-house (17th Century) and on archaeology.ie the following is mentioned Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as the 'castle of castletowne situated close by the shannon together with a Barbicon and a slate house'
Perhaps this is confused with the site of castle?
Both the church (which originally was protestant - now is a catholic burial ground), tower house and mill could possibly have been built from the remains of a castle that was repossessed in the 17th century.
The view of the 17th century towerhouse as per google streetview - http://maps.google.ie/maps/ms?msid=215105191614107316540.000496fe4eb2042b5af20&msa=0&ll=52.884391,-8.395698&spn=0.014528,0.0422720 -
Therefore I wonder did they know where the site of the older castle was? This opens the possibility as you point out above to it being your earthwok.
I'd say it's likely that the earthworks are contemporay with what ever was observed at this position by the OSI in c1830.. They have some sort of structure drawn in, so I'd say some sort of ruinous stone structure was standing at the time... There may have been an earlier phase of castle building dating back to the 13th/14th centuries at the site, either Norman or Native...Both the church (which originally was protestant - now is a catholic burial ground), tower house and mill could possibly have been built from the remains of a castle that was repossessed in the 17th century.
I'm not so sure.. The following implies that two castles (Castletown and Castlelough), the Church and the Mill existed before the confiscations, and under the ownship of the Papist Donogh O'Brien, which matches up with the current archaeological record..
Petty's maps (though he may have squeezed alot of info into this townland) are usally quite accurate.. But would be nice to see the actual Downsurvey maps of the townland, to be a bit more confident of the relative layout of the structures..0 -
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I'd say it's likely that the earthworks are contemporay with what ever was observed at this position by the OSI in c1830.. They have some sort of structure drawn in, so I'd say some sort of ruinous stone structure was standing at the time... There may have been an earlier phase of castle building dating back to the 13th/14th centuries at the site, either Norman or Native...
I'm not so sure.. The following implies that two castles (Castletown and Castlelough), the Church and the Mill existed before the confiscations, and under the ownship of the Papist Donogh O'Brien, which matches up with the current archaeological record..
Petty's maps (though he may have squeezed alot of info into this townland) are usally quite accurate.. But would be nice to see the actual Downsurvey maps of the townland, to be a bit more confident of the relative layout of the structures..
Well I think we can agree that the earthwork on bing isn't recorded anyway. What it was I guess we can't really say.
The is another castle in this area on a island to the north.
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,573696,682934,7,7 - so that probably muddies the water further. "Situated on an island, c. 20m in diam., on Lough Derg, near Castlelough. A ruinous tower house composed of randomly coursed sandstone rubble with sandstone quoins. The S wall (T 2.25m) survives to a length of 4.7m while the E wall is 5.8m long, though it continues in a very ruinous state for a further 9m. The ground floor has the remains of a vault springing from the E wall. The W and S walls have collapsed. The SE angle survives to four storeys. Some repairs have been done at second-floor level with concrete but the tower house is in a very collapsed state. There are mural stairs in the E wall and a short passage c. 2m long before the stairs turn into the S wall. A crude flat-headed loop lights the passage in the S wall and is a probable rebuild. Above the mural stairs on the E wall at second-floor level is a deep embrasure but the window has collapsed. Large chunks of collapsed masonry lie around the site."
- taken from Archaeology.ie
I might take the dog for a walk around that area this weekend anyway and see if I can turn up anything.0 -
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