Ballug Castle, County Louth (LH008-088001-)

Built of roughly coursed rubble greywacke and limestone blocks, now in a very poor state of preservation and extensively altered by later occupants. The E and S walls are almost intact but the rest of the structure is badly ruined. Projecting tower at SE angle with stairwell gave access to two floor levels above barrel-vaulted ground floor. This tower projects eastwards and there was possibly a matching tower at the NW angle to accommodate the garderobes. As illustrated by Wright (1758, bk II, pl. XII, fig. 1), the original entrance is through the E end of the S wall and the entrance to the stairwell is to its E side. The remaining jambs of the doorway are of chamfered punch-dressed limestone. The arch stones are missing but there is a large sandstone lintel over the entrance to the barrel-vaulted area of the ground floor. The inner faces of the door jambs have been rebated so that they line up with the side walls of the entranceway. The side walls are not bonded with the jambs and merely abut them. There is a bolt hole immediately behind the jambs and a well constructed murder hole (c. 0.4m sq.) over. Little remains of the barrel vault, which is set on a N-S axis, and modern entrances have been cut through its E and W walls. There are two small recesses in the S wall, one over the other, at ground level. The W ends of the N and S walls are destroyed, while the W wall is almost totally ruined and the remaining portion leans dangerously outwards. There are recesses in the NE angle of the castle at first- and second-floor level but access to this portion of the building could not be gained so it was not possible to establish whether or not they, rather than the NW angle, were used for garderobes. The NE angle also has a small tower rising above the level of the wall tops and through which the wall-walk passes. The SE angle-tower which contains the stairwell gave access to the first- and second floor levels as well as the wall-walk. Access is through a doorway at the E side of the main entrance. It has hammer-dressed limestone jambs with a rough sandstone lintel over. The steps are constructed of well-dressed limestone blocks up to first-floor level. First- and second-floor level doorways have hammer-dressed limestone jambs with sandstone lintels and sills. Sandstone blocks have been used for the steps from the first- to the second-floor level. There are single splayed opes in the stairwell. The wall-walk is made from large thin slabs of greywacke which slope towards the outside while the remaining angles have corbels projecting inwards by c. 0.25m to carry the corner-towers. In the N wall a relieving arch with a large granite lintel underneath it can be seen in the upper level. Also at this level in the same wall are the remains of a large single-light window with large stone blocks for jambs and lintel. It has a window seat remaining at the E side of the embrasure. The jambs are of hammer-dressed limestone, as are those of the blocked window immediately below at first-floor level. The E wall has a modern doorway knocked through at first-floor level and access is gained by external stone steps built over a modern ground-floor extension abutting the E facade and extending out as far as the line of the projecting SE angle-tower. These steps and doorway were made to give access to the first floor, presumably allowing it to be used for grain storage when the building ceased to be lived in. The remains of a house (LH008-088002-), now ruined, are attached to the N wall of the tower house. (Wright 1758, bk II, pl. XII; Stubbs 1908, 34) The above description is derived from both the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986) and the 'Archaeological Survey of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1991).