Coolhull Castle

There are no historical references to a castle at Coolhull, although this house was probably built in the second half of the 16th century. According to the Civil Survey (1654-6) in 1640 Nicholas Devereux owned 120 acres at Coolhull as well as 120 acres at St. Imocks, in St. Imoge’s parish, which is probably around the church (WX046-029001-) and now part of Coolhull townland, but the castle is not mentioned (Simington 1935, 152; Jeffrey 1979, 69-70; Butler 1985, 48-9). Robert Leigh writing in 1684 confirms that Devereux of Ballymagir (WX045-052001-) had another fine house at Coolhull, which had all passed to the Earl of Anglesey during the Cromwellian period (Hore 1853-4, 466). It is not known when it was abandoned, but it is marked as a roofed structure on the 1839 ed. of the OS 6-inch map.

The castle is situated on a level landscape and consists of a rectangular house of three storeys, with an entrance tower of four stories offset to the S (by 2m) on the W side. Much of the stone is granite, and all the dressed stonework is granite. Both the house and tower are complete with granite quoins and stepped crenellations, and both parts were built in conjunction. All the wooden floors in the house were supported on granite corbels. A pointed doorway (Wth 1.03m; H 2.12m) in the N wall of the tower is protected by a machicolation on the parapet and a yett, and it is also covered by a light in the W wall on the ground floor of the house. The doorway leads through a spacious lobby (dims 2.7m N-S; 1.65m E-W) to a newel stairs in the tower. There is no murder-hole, but from the lobby a pointed doorway (Wth 1.03m; H 1.99m) on the E leads to the ground floor of the house (int. dims 14.6m N-S; 6.05m E-W), which has three chamfered slit windows on the S wall and four on the N. The two most easterly lights on the N wall were broken out as secondary doorways. The long draw-bar socket of the entrance doorway extends into the ground floor of the house.

The newel stairs in the tower rises anti-clockwise, and from it a lintelled doorway (Wth 0.74m; H 1.81m) leads to a lintelled garderobe chamber (int. dims 2.85m E-W; 1.08m N-S; H 2.52m) at the S end of the tower with a light in each wall, that at S with pistol-loops covering the S wall of the house. The garderobe has a floor opening, now blocked, that leads to an oubliette or hidden chamber beneath. From the stairs a pointed doorway leads to the first floor of the house, which was the main public living-area. Although there is no evidence of internal divisions a destroyed fireplace in the E wall and an intact fireplace on the N wall (Leask 1941, 102-3) suggests that it was divided into a least two rooms by wooden partitions. On this floor the S wall has a plain light, two single-light round-headed chamfered windows, and one double-light round-headed window, while the N wall has three single-light round-headed chamfered windows, one double-light round-headed window opposite that in the S wall, and a corner loop at the NW angle. A lintelled doorway in the W wall of the house leads into the chamber over the entrance lobby in the tower, and this chamber has a rectangular window in the N wall.

The stairs continue to the second floor of the house, which is entered through a lintelled doorway. This floor has two simple lights in both the N and S walls but no other features. A lintelled doorway also leads from the newel stairs to the chamber at the N side of the tower that has a simple light in the N wall, and another doorway from the newel stairs leads to a mural stairs at the S end of the tower that emerges on the S wall-walk of the house. This is now inaccessible, but the parapets are perfectly preserved with five three-step merlons on the long walls and a square-shaped corner machicolation at the NE angle. This is perfectly preserved and has three single pistol-loops and two slit-loops covering the E and N walls of the house, each of the slit-loops with two shot-holes. The chimney-stacks rise through the N and E walls but are not supported by corbels on the outer faces of the walls. Instead the wall-walks and parapets project slightly. The house was roofed twice as two crease-lines can be seen in the W wall, although the E end of the roof appears to have been hipped.

In the tower the newel stairs continues to a fourth floor in the tower, which is partly over the housing of the stairs and was partly provided with a wooden floor supported on corbels in the E and W walls together with a ledge in the W wall. There is one slit window in the N wall and two in the W wall. The newel stairs continues in the tower to the inaccessible wall-walk of the tower. The parapet is destroyed, but it commanded the machicolation over the entrance doorway at N, and it may have been roofed as two corbels on its E wall suggest a lean-to roof. From the wall-walk steps on the inner face of the wall at S lead to a look-out over the stairs housing. There is no evidence that there was ever a bawn attached to the castle. It is now a National Monument, but the tower is inaccessible. Archaeological testing (10E0420) on the site of a new house c. 50m to the S produced some medieval pottery from the topsoil but no features relating to the house (Stafford 2013). Archaeological testing (E005086) S of the structure demonstrated that the subsoil outside to the SW had been cut into by farm buildings but the base of an open ENE-WSW drain, running just S of the outlet of the garderobe survived here (Pollock 2019; excavations.ie 2019:658). (O’Callaghan 1980 81, 26-31)

This is a National Monument in state ownership: No. 644.