What is recorded here

Kilcoe Castle stands on a small rocky island beside Roaring Water Bay, where a hidden corner tower once reinforced its bawn wall. Men may have watched the churning water from that lost tower, waiting for ships or storms while the castle watched them back. The bay still roars around the island, keeping the shape of that forgotten guard chamber alive in its own music.

On a small rocky island, close to the shore of Roaring Water Bay. Archaeological excavations, carried out in the mid-1990s in conjunction with the restoration of Kilcoe Castle (3084, vol. 1), revealed evidence of 'a rectangular corner tower on the bawn wall' (Cotter 2000f, 20). This was exposed in a trench 'some 15m south-east of the castle' and consisted of 'the foundations of a rectangular structure…measuring c. 1.3m north-south x c. 2m internally' (ibid.). (Cotter 2000g, 31) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

The Bawn in Kilcoe was associated with the Fitzgerald family, who held Kilcoe Castle in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is important as part of the defensive complex of Kilcoe Castle, illustrating the strategic use of coastal fortifications during the late medieval period in west Cork.

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