What is recorded here

Castle is a ruined ringwork in Oldcastle, County Tipperary, preserved as a scarped hillock, stone bawn and buried chamber. Wet marsh still surrounds its base, while a causeway leads across the western fosse into the flat interior. The Civil Survey of 1654-6 called it a stumpe of a castle, admitting that decades of neglect had already erased most of its shape. What remains is enough to suggest a small defensive house, built proud of the land and later surrendered to water, grass and forgetting.

Located on a natural hillock which appears to have been scarped to the N and W to give a steeper profile. The immediate terrain at the base of the hillock is wet and marshy and the ground level rises to the W and NE. Described in the Civil Survey 1654-6 as 'a stumpe of a castle' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 7). The site consists of a roughly square mound (dims. 23m N-S; 24.2m E-W. H 3.26m at NW) delimited by a stone wall or bawn, best preserved in the NW and SW angles and along the S side of the site where it forms a revetment for the mound. A long rectangular building indicated as a castle in ruins (TN017-050001) on the 1901-5 ed. OS 6-inch map along the interior of the bawn on the S side is no longer visible. Collapsed walling in roughly horseshoe shape in the NW angle of the site may be the remains of a structure. There is a fosse at the base of the mound at W with access to the interior via a causewayed entrance. The interior of the site is roughly level with the exterior. The NE portion of the site is quite overgrown. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008

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