Castle (in Ruins)

On NW shore of Lough George, on an overgrown peninsula extending SE into the lake. Drawn as a rectangular building and labelled ‘Castle (in ruins)’ on both the first (1842) and Cassini (1920) editions of the OS 6-inch map. Listed as ‘Tower house’ in the RMP (1996). According to Ua Cróinín and Breen (1997), in 1641 Turkenagh townland was the property of the Earl of Thomond, with a castle mentioned here in 1656, let to Henry Hayward. In 1664 Edward Barry was a tenant at Turkenagh and in 1696 Constance O’Davoren was the occupant. In c. 1712 the Earl of Thomond made out a lease in perpetuity of Turkenagh to Edward Wilson (ibid.).    This very poorly preserved rectangular structure (int. dims. 9.95m ESE-WNW; 4.2m NNE-SSW) is defined by walls (Wth 0.6-0.7m; max. H over 4m at SE) of limestone rubble (ibid.). The line of the W and most of the E gable walls survive; but less so the N and S sidewalls. There is a robbed-out embrasure at the E end of the N wall. In the centre of the E wall, a very large embrasure (H 2m), of which only the S side survives, may be a later, 18th-century feature. At the NW corner is an unusual embrasure, only the W side of which survives and is orientated NW-SE through the wall at an angle, towards the NW corner of the structure. There is a sort of buttress outside this corner on the W side, which appears to be coeval with the wall. Two possibly similarly dated structures are adjacent: one (CL017-053002-) c. 7m to the NNW and the second (CL017-053003-) c. 33m to the NE.   Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott   Date of upload: 13-10-2023