Foulksrath Castle

In rolling grassland, with rock outcrop in the immediate vicinity. On the S side of a bawn (KK010-056007-), the bawn wall running eastward from the N end of the E face of the tower house, and westward from the N end of the W face. The tower house projects forward from the bawn, standing on a platform (Wth 3m from base of tower house to edge of platform) which is surrounded by a moat E-S-W (Wth 10.8m at base; 18.5m at top).

On the Down Survey (1655-6) Parish map of Coolerahin, there is a castle drawn in ‘Foukrath’townland, annotated ‘a castle in repaire’. The terrier accompanying the map records, ‘There is a Castle in Repaire in Fouksrath with some Cabbins’, with the proprietor listed as ‘Phillip Pursall Ir[ish] Pa[pist]’. The castle is also drawn on the Down Survey barony map of Fassadining. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 197-9), Foulksrath, ‘is so called from its early proprietors, the De la Frenes, among whom Fulk was a common Christian name. The De la Frenes were succeeded here about the first half of the 15th century by the Purcells, who must be regarded as the founders of Foulksrath castle’,however, following the 1641 Rising, ‘the Foulksrath property was granted by Cromwell to Christopher Mathews, Theophilus Eaton and Joseph Bradshaw’. Between 1747 and 1761 the castle belonged to Thomas Grene, then to Wrights and then Ryans (ibid.). According to Wright (1885-6, 438) in the late 18th/early 19th century Thomas Wright left the castle to his fifth son Stephen who restored the castle. Gibb 1948, 53) notes that at this time, ‘the interior has been altered by making window openings larger, by panelling, plastering, making the fireplaces smaller – one of the originals was said to have been 17 ft. [c. 5m] across’. It was further altered in 1946-7 when it was converted into an An Oíge youth hostel. It remained in use as a youth hostel until 2009 when it was sold. It is currently privately owned.

A five-storey tower house (ext. dims. 11.5m N-S (NNE-SSW); 9.4m E-W (ESE-WSW)) built of roughly coursed limestone rubble with cut stone quoins. The parapet has crow-stepped crenellations and there are mural chambers at parapet level along the N and S walls. The tower house is lit by original single-light flat, round and ogee-headed windows at the lower levels, angle-loops at second-floor level and ogee-headed two-light windows with hollow spandrels at fourth-floor level. Other flat or elliptical-headed windows with hood-mouldings, from ground to third-floor level, are 18th/early 19th century insertions mimicking an early 17th-century style. The larger openings at second, third and fourth-floor level on the W face have inserted metal balconies to facilitate a fire escape. There is also a metal balcony at first-floor level inserted below the window in the S face. There is a significant base-batter (H c. 4m) at ground level. A later building, built up against the N face, obscures the original entrance. There is a pointed doorway, with yett-holes, at the E end of the N wall which gives access to a double lobby, protected by a murder-hole, with a guardroom to E. The first lobby is protected by a cross-loop opposite the entrance. The second lobby gives access to the vaulted ground-floor chamber which has two windows, one in the S and one in the W wall. The entrance lobby also gives access to a spiral stair in the NW angle, from which all the upper storeys are reached. The interior has wooden floors, except over the third-floor which has a vaulted roof. There are garderobe chambers in the E and S walls at third and fourth-floor level (Brennan 1979, 57), the garderobe chute appears to exit at the E end of the S wall, c. 1m above ground, where there is a blocked-up roughly square opening.