What is recorded here

Ross son of Conchobhar son of Cathal Ó Fearghail built the Tirlickeen tower in 1406, giving the castle a clear birth before it vanished from ordinary sight. John Farrell still occupied that same stronghold in 1641, proving the stone remained useful through centuries of change. A fragment reused in an outhouse doorway may preserve part of its frame, while the rest waits buried beneath fields and forgotten paths.

In 1406 the annals recorded that the ‘castle of Tír Leicín was built by Ross son of Conchobhar son of Cathal Ó Fearghail’ (Ó Hinnse 1947, 181). The 1641 depositions state that John Farrell, along with others, ‘had taken up his castle; Great house [LF022-072----] & houses off office within the Bawen [LF022-072002-]’ at Tirlickeen (TCD, MS 817, fol. 277v). A tower-house type castle is depicted in ‘Tirelickin’ on an early 17th-century map of Rathcline barony (BL Cotton MS Augustus I.i.48). Its precise location has not been identified. It may have been located on or near the site of the 17th-century house (LF022-072---) and bawn (LF022-072002-). An architectural fragment (see LF022-072004-) that has been reused in the doorway of an outhouse, which is to the NE of the now-levelled, late 18th-century house that was built by Lord Annaly (Mason 1819, vol. 3, 339) c. 850m to the NW and named ‘Tirlickeen House’ on the OS 6-inch maps,’ may have come from this possible tower house. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 18 June 2012

Ross Ó Fearghail built the tower house at Tirlickeen in 1406; it is remembered as a Gaelic stronghold in early modern Ireland.

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