Historic Family Home Tours

Castlegarde (Caisleán na gCeard) Castle is a tower house built some time in the 15th/16th century. In 1586 the state papers listed Brain Buoy [Buí O'Brien], of Castlegard' as one of the gentlemen and freeholders of the county of Limerick, who was not in rebellion (Cal. S.P. Ire. 1586-88, 236). In 1588 after the Desmond Rebellion a plowland of Castlegard was confiscated by the Crown and granted to Sir George Bourchier as part of his Lough Gur estate (Nicholls 1994, 74). In the 17th century the castle was in the ownership of Henry Bourchier (1587-1654), 5th Earl of Bath. By the 1820s the castle was in the possession of Waller O’Grady, the son of a local landowner. After he married in 1823 the tower house was extensively renovated and turned into part of a castellated country house residence. It was probably then in the romantic tradition of the time that the castle was associated with Brian Boru and his head carved over the entrance door to the house. The castle is not depicted in the townland of 'Kasslanenagard' on the 1657 Down Survey map of Coonagh Barony as it was then on English owned lands belonging to Henry Earl of Bath and so was excluded from the land confiscations of the mid 17th century (Hib. Reg.; Simington 1938, 36).

The castle was described by John O'Donovan in 1840 as following; ‘In the Townland of Castlegarde in this Parish is situated a Castle of the same name, said to have been erected by a branch of the Mac Brian O’gCuanach family. It was lately (1829) repaired by Waller O’Grady, Esq., the proprietor of the Townland, who has built several beautiful towers near it. It is a small square Castle, five stories high. I have no historical reference to it’ (O’Flanagan 1929, vol. 1, 133). The castle was described in the Ordnance Survey Name Books for the parish of Doon as following; 'Castleguard is the seat of the Ho. Waller O'Grady. It is the ruin of a castle, said to have been first built by the O'Briens, and now repaired by the above proprietor. It is seated on a limestone rock and is covered with ivy. Other apartments have been added to it since 1829, at a cost of about £5,000 (OSNB).

Westropp recorded the following details about this castle; ‘1586, Castlegarde C[astle] in Coonagh (C.S.P.I., p 311). 1587 Called Castlenegarde (Fi. 5282). 1655 Castletown and Killanegard, in Doone, held by H. Earl of Bath (C.S. xxiii, p26); Castleanegard (B.D., p 45); Kasslanegard in Doone (Petty, 67)’ (Westropp 1906-7, 104).

In the 1820s the then proprietor Waller O’Grady (youngest son of Standish O’Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore whose seat was Cahir Guillamore, located just west of Lough Gur) employed the architects James and George Richard Pain whose work involved ‘modernising a tower house, adding a castellated wing to the structure and restoring the walls of the old castle bawn giving them battlements and a new castellated gateway’ (Lee 2005, 235; Bence-Jones 1978, 69). The impetus for the building appears to have been Waller O’Grady’s marriage in 1823, when ‘he and his wife wished to retain the use of the rooms in the tower-house, which were carefully renovated so as not to spoil the external appearance’ (de Breffny & ffolliott 1975, 194).

The castle was described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage [NIAH] as following; 'Attached four-bay one-and-half storey country house, c. 1840, having central projecting tower. House attached to five-storey square-plan tower house, built c. 1198. Attached bawn wall enclosing site, with limestone arch gateway and lodge to south-west corner. Pitched slate roofs with lead ridging, stepped crenellations to house with cut eaves course and dentils. Rubble limestone walls with roughly dressed quoins having battered base to tower. Dressed limestone walls to house with cut plinth, carved face to central tower. Square-headed openings with mixed timber sliding sash and fixed timber windows to tower, some having geometrical tracery. Round-headed windows to first floor of house under label mouldings having one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, four light opening to ground floor under hoodmoulding having replacement uPVC window. Square-headed openings to eastern end of front elevation having timber sliding sash windows. Pointed arch door opening to tower having cut limestone surround and timber and glazed door. Pointed arch opening to central projecting tower of house comprising double-leaf timber panelled door under hoodmoulding. Flight of limestone steps to front of house. Entrance arch and lodge comprising pointed arch within dressed limestone walls with cut stringcourse and capping to parapet. Cross loops to wall. Carved gargle to parapet on south-west elevation. Three carved limestone statues depicting three goddesses, Bacchus, Mars and goddess Athene entwined in a fish to north-east elevation. Adjoining gate lodge comprising circular-plan tower having dressed limestone walls with crenellated battlements supported on cut corbels. Square-headed window opening under label moulding to north-east elevation, loop windows to south-west elevation under hoodmouldings all having lattic glazing. Rubble limestone bawn walls with crenellations punctuated by carved towers enclosing site’ (www.buildingsofireland.ie; NIAH Reg. No. 21901517). Both of the dates given in the nIAH description are inaccurate. As noted above the castellated work by the Pain's dates to c. 1823-c. 1829 and not c. 1840. The date 1198 might be acceptable for a Norman keep- which this is not- but is three hundred years too early for a tower house. Later in the description it states that ‘this complex (was) originally built by the O'Briens', which is also inaccurate.