Athenry Castle

This castle, a conserved National Monument, is situated in the NE end of the Anglo-Norman town of Athenry (GA084-001----). It was built by Meiler de Bermingham between 1235 and 1240 and it occupies a slight rise that controlled a ford over the River Clareen (Bradley and Dunne 1992, 22-3). Rectangular in plan (int. dims. 13.1m NE-SW; 7.25m NW-SE; wall T c. 1.7m) and of random-rubble construction with dressed quoin stones, it is three storeys high with a gabled attic; it has a pronounced base-batter (H 2.1m; base Wth 1.2m). It occupies the W half of the surrounding D-shaped bawn (GA084-001085-), some of the walls of which act as part of the town defences (GA084-001001-). The late Professor Rynne suggested a three-phase construction sequence (Papazian 1991, 2). The original castle was two storeys high and consisted of the ground floor and a first-floor hall. It was accessed by a decorated pointed arch doorway (Wth 1.3m; H 2.6m) at 1st-floor level. The doorway was reached by a flight of external steps/stairs or a forebuilding as indicated by the two beam slots in the external wall-face to its left and the projecting slabs above it. The hall was lit by four tall windows, each centrally located in a deeply splayed embrasure, one in each wall. Decorated capitals on top of the columns of the doorway and the embrasures in the SE and SW walls indicate that this chamber was intended to be displayed to the public (Sweetman 1999, 70).The original floor was wooden. A garderobe chamber in the N corner, which projects from the external wall-face, is lit by two narrow slit windows. Its external cesspit was excavated in 1989 (Papazian 1991, 6-7). Access to the ground floor was gained from this level by means of an internal wooden stairs or a ladder in the W corner. The lower floor was lit by four small windows, again each one set in a centrally located deeply splayed embrasure in each wall; the one in the SW wall is now blocked off. Originally this floor was probably used for storage. Drainage holes visible in the gable walls at 1st-floor level indicate the level of the original roof. The walls and roof were subsequently raised c. 1250. During this phase a gallery was added to the SW end of the building. Clear evidence for this includes the remains of a masonry arch in the SW wall near the doorway and three beam holes opposite it in the NW wall (Sweetman ibid.). The raised walls are windowless apart from a slit window in the SE wall that lit the gallery. An intramural stairway to its E leads to the wall-walk. The merlons of the crenellated parapet are pierced with long cruciform arrow loops and beam holes visible below it indicate that the castle was further defended by a hoard. Further alterations occurred in the 15th century when the high gable ends were added, the ground floor was vaulted and the ground-floor doorway was inserted. During this period the parapets were incorporated into the gable walls. The vault inserted into the ground floor was supported on the NW and SE side-walls, and three pillars along the centre of the floor. Traces of the wickerwork-centring are still visible on its underside. Following restoration works carried out by the Office of Public Works in the 1990s, wooden floors were added to the second floor, which is now an audio-visual theatre, and the attic. A wooden stairway which accessed the 1st-floor doorway was replaced by a steel one in 2018. (Leask 1941, 36-9; Bradley and Dunne 1992, 23-4)