Ballintober Castle

Located at the SE end of a low NW-SE drumlin ridge. Ballintober Castle was built by Richard de Burgh, the second Earl of Ulster known as the Red Earl, c. 1300 (Claffey 1972-3; 1974-5), and it is first mentioned in 1315 when it was captured by Ruaraí O'Conor. It was described in an inquisition of 1333 as surrounded by a stone wall with ruinous buildings, a hall, a chamber, and a kitchen. About 300 acres were worked directly in demesne and there were free tenants in the territory of Síl Mael Ruain, which extended off to the NW (Knox 1903, 59-60). In 1362 Cathal Óg O’Conor seized the castle, and it was retained by one branch or another of the O'Conors throughout the rest of the Middle Ages.

Ballintober Castle was recognised as the caput of O’Conor Don after the split with O’Conor Rua in 1381, and it remained in their hands thereafter, apart from occupation or siege by Mac William Burke in 1409, O'Kelly in 1426 and 1434-5, Mac William Burke again in 1466, the earl of Kildare in 1526, and O'Donnell in 1530. In 1571 it was captured by Richard Bingham, President of Connaught, but granted to Hugh O'Conor in 1585 (Bradley and Dunne 1988a, 25). It was captured by Hugh O'Donnell in 1598, and reconstructed in 1627, which probably involved the conversion of the NW angle tower. The castle was confiscated from O’Conor in 1652 but it was restored to Col. Hugh O'Conor in 1677, who died shortly afterwards. By this time the castle was mortgaged, and Hugh was probably the last person to live in it. Ownership was returned to the O’Conor family after 1889, and it is now closed to the public except by appointment. (O'Conor Don 1889; O'Conor, 2007, 199-200). Two recent surveys – remote sensing (Nicholls 2008, 2009) and archaeological, and architectural (Brady 2014; see this web-page: http://www.castlestudiestrust.org/Ballintober-Castle.html) – have transformed our understanding of the castle and what follows is based largely on both.

The castle is a keepless castle, i.e. has no single strongly defended residence, and presents now as a subrectangular grass-covered area (dims c. 84m E-W; c. 75m N-S) defined by curtain walls (Wth c. 2m; int. H 2-5m) with an external base-batter. There are polygonal towers at each angle. The enclosure walls survive almost complete, except the E wall where the original entrance is visible as the foundation of two D-shaped towers located just S of a handball alley, which incorporates the N wall of the N gate tower. The S tower has evidence of a basement level and an external base-batter. Each tower appears to have had two chambers and each tower survives partially to the first floor.

The N wall of the castle enclosure had six embrasures, two surviving complete with gun-loops, and has a mural stairs rising to a wall-walk that doesn’t survive, while the W wall has four recognisable embrasures. A gap at the centre of the W wall may be the site of a postern gate with a causeway (Wth of top 6m) outside it. The moat is most pronounced at NW (Wth of top 16.5m; Wth of base 8m; ext. D 3.6m) where the ridge is highest, and only survives visibly on the N, W and S sides. There are D-shaped corner towers at each angle, which are faceted where they project into the moat, but those at the NE and SE angles barely survive above the ground floor, with few visible architectural features.

The SW tower survives to the second floor with no vaulting, although it is suggested that it had an elaborate timber-rib ceiling (Brady 2014, 39), and its NE wall is missing. The ground floor (int. dims c. 10m NE-SW; 4.95m NW-SE) has three embrasures with rectangular lights (one with a gun-loop), and a destroyed fireplace. A newel stairs is external to the E angle. The first floor has two embrasures with destroyed windows and a fireplace, while a passage at the N angle leads to a garderobe chamber in the angle between the tower and the curtain wall. The second floor has four destroyed windows and a rebate to support the floor joists.

The NW tower was revamped as a tower house of four stories with no vault, and few original features survive, apart, perhaps, from a round-headed embrasure on the SW wall of the second floor. The damaged entrance towards the E angle of the SE side led through a lobby and a pointed doorway to the D-shaped ground floor (int. dims 6.55m NW-SE; 4.9m NE-SW) with an embrasure on each long wall, one with a rectangular light (H 0.75m), and there is probably a blocked embrasure on the NW wall. From the lobby a pointed doorway and passage in the SE wall lead to a newel stairs at the S angle, which accessed the upper floors. At a mezzanine level is a guardroom with a destroyed murder-hole and a rectangular light with a hood-moulding over the main entrance. The stairs to the upper levels is destroyed, but the first floor has a window with a square hood-moulding externally on the SW wall, and a fireplace together with what might have been a doorway to the wall-walk of the N wall in the NE wall.

A pointed doorway led from the stairs to the main chamber of the second floor which has two window embrasures with destroyed three-light rectangular windows, that at SW with the elaborate rounded rear-arch. A grand fireplace in the NE wall has the date 1627, an IHS monogram and the inscription ‘CONro’ carved in false relief on an impost. A pointed doorway leads to a chamber in the SE wall, which has a rectangular light with a square hood-moulding. The third floor combines the floor-space of both rooms on lower floors, has a single but smaller rectangular window on each long wall and a three-light rectangular window with a square hood-moulding in the SE wall beneath a gable, while a perfect fireplace beneath a chimney stack is in the NW gable wall.

Only the base of the ivy-covered NE tower survives but it is aligned N-S and may be a late addition. Fragments of three windows can be seen at the ground floor while there is evidence of a small fireplace in the E wall of the first floor. The ivy-covered SE tower is aligned NW-SE, is open-backed and has five openings at the ground floor but no dressed stone survives. It may have had a vault over the ground floor. (Brady 2014, 46-7)

Resistivity, gradiometry and ground penetrating radar surveys (08R0262) conducted inside and outside the castle by Target Archaeological Geophysics on behalf of the Ballintober Community Group and funded by the Heritage Council during 2008 and 2009 produced exciting results, which are largely at a depth of 0.6-1.6m. Resistivity and gradiometry produced evidence of an L-shaped building (L c. 34m N-S; c. 34m E-W; ext. Wth c. 15m) inside the SW angle and parallel with but c. 10m from the curtain walls. Its N extension is not confirmed by GPR. This could be interpreted as the hall (RO027-048016-) that was mentioned in the inquisition of 1333, and it consists of two rows of masonry pillars, which may have formed the core of a largely timber, three-aisled structure. Inside the NE angle and parallel with, but c. 10m from, the curtain walls, a smaller structure (ext. dims c. 12m E-W; c. 9m N-S) is interpreted as a possible church or chapel (RO027-048017-). Its W wall is missing, but it appears to have had external buttresses and an entrance in the N wall. SE of this, towards the castle gateway there may have been a cobbled yard. There is weaker evidence of a third building (RO027-048018-) (dims c. 15m E-W; c. 9m N-S) inside the NW angle under a slight surface platform, and of connecting walls forming an inner court. (Nicholls 2008, 2009)

The resistivity and gradiometry surveys (Nicholls 2008) also produced evidence of an enclosure (RO027-048019-) (diam. c. 45m) which probably pre-dates the castle centred on a point inside the E castle wall S of the gateway in the form of a discontinuous fosse feature SW-N. There was also evidence of numerous pits, and of two possible structures inside the perimeter at N defined by foundation trenches. One hut-site (RO027-048020-) is circular (diam. c. 10m), while the rectang