Overview
Castle — Lisfinny is recorded as Castle — tower house in Waterford. Located towards the bottom of a S-facing slope overlooking the W-E Bride River, c. 160m to the S. This is a Fitzgerald castle with references dating with certainty from the Desmond Rebellion of 1579, after which it was granted to Sir Walter Raleigh (O'Connell Redmond 1918, 148-50).
Who built and held it
The saved account records: H 4.2m at S) c. 2-4m from the base of the tower on the S and E sides may be part of an original bawn.
Attack, change and use
The saved account records: Mural stairs rise from the S side of the W embrasure to the SW angle where a mural passage leads down through the S wall past the destroyed external doorway to a chamber commanding the murder-hole.
What survives
The saved account records: The first floor has tall rectangular lights in the E, W and S walls, a destroyed fireplace and oven in the E wall, and a garderobe at the SE angle.
Why it mattered
Castle — Lisfinny matters because the source ties castle — tower house to this exact landscape and preserves evidence that a bare map name loses. The saved account adds: (2006) Cross-cultural occurrences of mutations in tower house architecture: evidence for cultural homogeneity in late medieval Irealnd?
History checked 15 August 2026 against the named sources below.
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