Muckinish Castle

On the W shore of Pouldoody Bay with two small inlets to E and WNW appearing to form natural, but tidal, landing points and higher pastureland rising gently to the S. Located in and to the NNW seaward-side of a bawn (CL003-008001-). Indicated and named ‘Muckinish Castle (in ruins)’ on the 1842 and 1915 eds. of the OS 6-inch maps and as ‘Caisleán Muicinis Nua (Ó Lochlainn)’ on Robinson’s map (1977).

The castle is known locally as ‘Muckinish nua’ a name Westropp (1895, 280) attributed to a legend that it was built three years after Seanmuckinish castle (CL003-002----). Westropp tentatively dated its construction to the 15th century and it was recorded as in ruins by 1837 (Lewis 1995 [1837]). For most of the 16th century it was an O’Loughlin castle and while it was periodically in their hands during the 17th century it also passed through the possession of the Neylons, including Daniel Neylon the first husband of Máire Rua and later their son William, and Máire Rua and John Cooper, her third husband (Breen and Ua Cronin 2008). In 1659, John Tully was a tenant probably under lease from Cooper or the Blakes, one of whom is recorded to have been farming the land in 1705 (ibid.).

The N wall (L 8.5m) and portions of the E (L 4.5m) and W (L 5.8m) walls, surviving to almost full height (H 17.5m), of a 4-storey tower house, with a slight base-batter, built of roughly dressed limestone rubble in erratic courses but with some finely carved features (Ua Cróinín and Breen 1996; Breen and Ua Cróinín 2008). There are remnants of vaulted ceilings over the ground and 2nd floors and a garderobe shaft, running the full height of the building in the W wall, connects chambers in the 1st and 3rd floors. There are five flat-headed loops set in squared and inwardly splaying embrasures, four in the N wall and one in the W wall, two double-light ogee-headed windows, one in the solar of the N wall and the remains of another in the solar of the E wall. A lintelled opening on the 2nd floor leads to a chamber in the W wall which may have served as an oubliette or lock-up chamber and a short vertical cut (0.1m x 0.1m) through the vault above the W wall loop embrasure may have served as a later chimney. There are large rubble fragments to the S of the castle, among which portions of a chimney flue and stairwell are discernible, which Ua Cróinín and Breen (2008, 8) have suggested may have been blown down using gunpowder.

A small rectangular building (CL003-008003-) stands at the SW corner of the enclosing bawn (CL003-008001-).