Derryhiveny Castle

In pastureland c. 1.4km to the W of the River Shannon. This well-preserved tower house, a National Monument, was built by the O'Madden family in 1643 and it is one of the few Irish castles that can be precisely dated (Leask 1938-9, 72). It comprises a rectangular four-storey tower (11.2m E-W; 9.5m N-S) with a gabled attic. It has a pronounced base-batter (H 2.5m) and was built on a plinth (Wth 0.15m), which is most clearly visible along the base of the E wall. The gables are crowned with Jacobean chimney stacks and traces of the slates that covered the roof are embedded near the apex of the W gable. The masonry consists of roughly worked stones and mortar but the quoinstones, doorway and window stones are all dressed. Two steps lead to the original pointed arch doorway, which is located near the N end of the E wall and is of two orders. Traces of iron hinges on its N side suggest that it was protected by an iron grille or yett. It is flanked by musket loops at the apex of its arch and on its S side. Smaller openings in the jambstones on each side may be yett holes that housed the chains that opened and closed the door. The doorway accesses a small lobby with a beautiful quatrefoil window directly opposite it in the W wall. A doorway at the W end of N wall accesses the guardroom to the N; a wall cupboard is visible in the W wall and a breach in the E wall marks a robbed-out slit window. A doorway at the E end of the S wall leads to an inner lobby off which the spiral stairs rise in the SE corner, and another doorway in the W wall accesses the main ground-floor room. An infilled breach in the N wall of this room marks the site of another window. An unusual feature is an intramural chamber in the SE corner. All the floors were of timber and none survive. However, an original wooden beam, possibly the wall-plate between the 1st and 2nd floors in the W wall, survives and is propped up with iron supports. Corbels mark the various floor levels. On the 1st and 2nd floors small chambers open off the E side of the main rooms but the 3rd and 4th floors comprise just one large main room. A fireplace in the W wall on the ground floor is a later insertion and it blocks a single-light ogee-headed window. The rest of the fireplaces in this wall on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors are original as are those in the E wall of the subsidiary chamber on the 2nd floor and the E wall of the 4th floor. The walls on the 2nd floor were plastered. To the N of the fireplace on the 1st floor a wall cupboard roofed with original wooden lintels is visible. Passages in the N walls on the 1st and 2nd floors lead to garderobes in the NW angles; the former has a finely decorated ventilator with a triskele design. The garderobe exit chute is visible at the N end of the W wall, between the ground and first floors. A mix of plain rectangular windows and two or three-light mullioned windows with hood-mouldings lit the main and subsidiary rooms. Apart from a circular window at 1st-floor level, the stairwell was lit by eight flat-headed narrow single lights and every second window has a slopstone. The stairway accessing the wall-walk was formerly housed in a small gabled dormer (ibid., 73). A string course runs around the tower. Parapets which do not seem to have been crenellated crown the building and there are machiolations at the NE and SW angles. The former extends along the E wall to protect the doorway below and an inscription, which reads: ‘D : OM ME : FIERI : FECIT : 1643’ (ibid., 72), is carved on the corbels along this side; however, it is not visible at ground level. The diagonally disposed chimney stacks with caps and string courses rise from the E and W gables. Substantial sections of the associated bawn (GA118-035001-), including circular towers at its NE and SW angles, survive. A section of walling (L 3.3m), extending off the N wall of the tower, 8m to the W of the surviving N section of the W bawn wall is not bonded into the tower and it may mark the line of the small structure (Wth 8m) shown on the 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map. The foundations lines of the N wall of this feature are also visible. An architectural fragment (GA118-035002-) from the tower house is now lying in the remains of the ruined house c. 40m to the S. (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 2, 68; Leask 1951, 88, 103-5; Harbison 1975, 89-90)