Kiltartan Castle

On steeply rising ground on the W bank of the Gort River in gently undulating pastureland. This National Monument comprises a much-ruined 13th-century de Burgo castle and bawn (Harbison 1975, 96). Known alternatively as 'Ballinamantaine' castle (Leask 1973, 156), a name still preserved in an adjoining townland, it appears to be named 'Ballecastle' in the 1574 list of castles in Co. Galway when it was then in the possession of 'Mac Remon' (Nolan 1901, 114). The castle consists of an almost square three-storey high building (ext. dims. 11.7m N-S; 11.5m E-W) with a projecting angle at the SE corner. It is constructed of heavily mortared randomly coursed undressed limestone blocks. There is a pronounced base-batter and the base at the SE corner has been reinforced. Access is via a robbed-out doorway on the ground floor, at the N end of the W wall. It accesses a lobby, to the S of which there is a narrow passage (Wth 1.45m) running N-S. An arched entrance at the S end of wall of this passage accesses the main room (10m E-W; 5.25m N-S), the present layout of which dates to the late-medieval period when a wickerwork-centred vault supported by four pillars was inserted. The SE corner of the room is obscured due to the collapse of the roof and it was not possible to determine if its layout mirrored that of the external projecting wall-face. Two sets of straight intramural stairs ascend from the ground to the 1st floor: one from the SW corner and along the S wall, and the other from the NW corner, directly inside the doorway, along the N wall. The upper floors are very ruinous apart from traces of a stairwell, at 2nd-floor level at the W end of the N wall, and a number of robbed windows; otherwise few architectural features survive. An internal dividing wall, running N-S, on the 1st floor is a later insertion. There is a pointed arched doorway at the N end of this wall. The castle stands at SE corner of a large roughly rectangular bawn (GA123-031001-). (Grose 1791, 62; Killanin 1951, 121; O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 2, 621; CUCAP BDN 31)