What is recorded here

Garraunboy Castle rose inside a rectangular bawn with angled turrets at each corner, blocking the plain against raiders from the middle of the fifteenth century. Richard Stephenson still owned the ruined castle and bawn when surveyors came during the civil wars, proving the stones had outlived their first builders. The south wall and one turret have levelled into the earth, but three vaulted turrets and gunloops remain sharp enough to suggest the darkness they were made to watch.

Westropp (1906-7, 220) recorded the following details about Garraunboy (Garrán Buí) Castle (LI021-070----) and bawn; 'The O.S.L. only note it as "a ruin on a plain." It is an oblong peel tower 30 feet [9.1m] by 46 feet [14m], outside. The main wing had four wooden floors covered by a stone vault; there is a skew-loop on the second floor opening at the north-west angle, and another on the third floor at the north-east. There are numerous ambries and ogee headed window-slits. The end wing has the usual spiral stair with doors to each story to the south-west, and five stories with small rooms to the south-east. The lower rooms and top story are under vaults. All the southern face and most of the side walls of this part are gone. The peel stands in a bawn 63 feet [19.2m] east and west, 82 feet [25m] north and south. The walls 3 feet [0.9m] at top, and battered out to 6 feet [1.8m] below. The south wall and south-west turret are levelled. Turrets with vaulted roofs and 12 feet [3.65m] diameter, inside, remain at the three other angles. The peel tower dates from about the middle of the fifteenth century'. The 1654-56 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that Richard Stephenson of Dunmoylan, an Irish Papist, was the owner of Garraunboy which contained 'a ruined castle & bawne' (Simington 1938, 293). Castle and bawn described by Salter (2004, 83) as follows; 'The outer wall of the thick end wall of a five storey tower 14m long by 9m wide has fallen although the rest still stands high, with a vault over the fourth storey. Closely surrounding the tower are remains of a small rectangular bawn with four D-shaped flankers between 4m and 5m in external diameter. One still retains a vault and three gunloops'. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 3 December 2020

Bawn in Garraunboy was likely built by a local Gaelic lord or Anglo-Norman family during the late medieval period, probably between the 14th and 16th centuries. It is remembered as a defensive structure reflecting the turbulent history of territorial control in Ireland during that era.

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