What is recorded here

Castle is a tower house in Newcastle, County Meath, reduced to a seven-metre wall and a curving tower fragment inside a farm building. Henry Betagh owned the land and its ruinous castle in 1640, suggesting the structure had already lost much of its shape before it disappeared from common memory. The surviving wall may have formed the west side of a bawn, while the tower fragment hints at a smaller, defensible home rather than a grand castle.

According to the Civil Survey (1654-6) Henry Betagh owned 429 acres at Newcastle in 1640 and on the premises was ‘a ruinous castle’ (Simington 1940, 301). Henry also owned 132 acres in Corbogg, but other members of the family owned most of the rest of the parish (ibid. 299-302). The castle is not indicated on any OS map, but it is marked on a manuscript map (ms: 21 F 14 (43) in NLI. It is situated on a local rise. One wall (L c. 7m N-S; T 1.5m; H c. 2m) with a fragment of a curving tower at its N end but no architectural features survives incorporated into the W wall of a farm building. This is probably the W wall of a bawn. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Meath' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of revision: 10 June 2016

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