Carrigaholt Castle

Within a small bawn (CL065-100004-) on a rocky headland on the N bank of the Shannon Estuary with extensive views over the Shannon and Carrigaholt Bay.

This 15th century tower house was the principal residence of the MacMahon chiefs of West Corkavaskin. Turlough MacMahon and his son Tadhg Caech (‘the Short-sighted’) signed Sir John Perrot’s tripartite deed in 1585. Tadhg was unsuccessfully besieged in the tower by Sir Conyers Clifford in 1598 but shortly afterwards the Earl of Thomond was successful in wresting the castle from him. It was then taken over by Daniel O’Brien (who built the 5th-floor fireplace dated 1603 and probably inserted many of the present windows). In 1651 it was taken by Cromwell’s General Ludlow who kept a garrison there until 1652. Charles II restored the castle to the O’Briens in 1666. In 1691 William of Orange gave it to Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, who sold it to the Burton family who retained it until the 19th century.

A five-storey tower house (12.8m N-S; 5.3m E-W; H 18.8m) in the SW corner of a small bawn. The walls have a base batter and are constructed of roughly coursed local flagstone with limestone doors and windows.

The exterior of the N wall has five central blocked-up narrow lights, all but that on the first floor being similar and there is a corner bartizan near the E corner. Some plaster markings point to later external buildings.

The E wall has a central pointed doorway (Wth 1.1m; H 1.7m) of dressed limestone with a murder-hole overhead and a gun loop at S. The door has a shot-hole at S. Above the doorway at second, third and fourth floors are narrow blocked-up windows and a bartizan at the top. There are matching rectangular twin-light windows on either side of the door on the first to fourth floors inclusive. The ground floor has a smaller window on each side of the doorway. A small blocked-up narrow window occupies the S end of the first floor.

A 4-storied building formerly attached to the S wall is evidence by two rooflines and a partly blocked-up doorway at ground level (H 2m). There are rectangular windows on the first and second floors and narrow lights on the third and fourth floors.

Each floor on the S side of the W wall has a rectangular two-light window with its central mullion missing. There is a lower, smaller window in the centre of the W wall at current ground level and there are two narrow blocked-up windows on the third floor. The fourth floor has a corner bartizan at NW with an adjacent window on the W wall. There is a tall chimney stack on the W wall also. Two projecting lines of stones visible on the outer face of the W wall attest to another large building. Westropp (1911, 40) refers to a 1675 sketch of this mansion.

The E doorway leads into a lobby with vaulted chambers to N and S, accessed through pointed-arched doors. The N chamber (4.6m N-S; 3m E-W) is lit by narrow loops on the E and N walls and the vault has wicker centring. As the castle was occupied into the 19th century much reshaping is evident with red brick used to alter the internal layout. Storage units of red brick in the N chamber were used for wine. S of the lobby is another vaulted chamber with a wide spiral stairwell (Wth 2.5m) to SW and a narrow chamber (2.5m x 0.6m) to E lit by a narrow loop. The stairs is of local thin flagstone and is no longer safe.

The tower house has two main N-S vaults, one over the ground floor and one over the third floor. The other floors were supported on beams resting on corbels. One wall-plate beam of the third floor remains in situ. Westropp (1911, 41) described some remaining wooden floors that were at that stage in danger of collapse. The wall over the double-light windows at each floor level was supported by wooden planks (now rotten), possibly inserted in the 18th century. On the 4th floor there is a fine limestone fireplace with ‘D.B. 1603’ inscribed.

Archaeological excavation (Licence no. 02E1579) by Laurence Dunne relating to the building of a new sea wall to prevent encroaching marine erosion (which had penetrated to within 3.5m of the castle) revealed what were deemed the likely remains of the foundations of the late 17th-century mansion evidenced by the rooflines and blocked up doorway on the S gable of the towerhouse. There was also some 17th-century tin-glazed earthenware. Carrigaholt castle is a National Monument in State care, no. 427.

(Westropp 1911, 40-41; Harbison 1970 (reprint 1992), 58; Ua Cróinín and Breen 1997; Dunne 2004, 36-7)