What is recorded here

Carrowbrowne Castle stood fifty-four feet tall at the southern edge of the Curragh bogland, holding a young man named Donell Oge Ohologhan inside its thick walls in 1574. The Burkes later added grand buildings beside the original stone, creating a complex that dominated the wet landscape until human greed struck. They pulled the ancient castle down in the late nineteenth century, stealing its bricks to build something new and forgetting the name of the man who first defended it.

At S edge of an extensive tract of bogland called the Curragh. In existence in 1574 when it was occupied by 'Donell Oge Ohologhan' (Nolan 1901, 115). Described in OS Letters as 'an old castle in ruins. The walls are still standing, thickness 4 feet [1.2m], height 54 feet [16.45m], bread[th] within walls 25 feet [7.6m]'. They also note 'that the extensive ruins of other edifices attached to it, are the remains of buildings got up after the erection of the castle by the family of the Burkes' (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 1, 138). All that remains today are the ruins of a later house (GA082-018002-), the castle itself having fallen, and its stone reused, in the late 19th C. (Athy 1914, 154-5) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

Carrowbrowne Castle was occupied in 1574 by Donell Oge Ohologhan, a member of the Nolan family, and is remembered as a historic ruin in a remote, boggy landscape, reflecting the presence of Gaelic lordships in the region during the late 16th century.

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