What is recorded here

A castle never appeared in Ardcath records, yet men called the summit field Castle long before quarry teeth broke its hidden walls in the 1920s. Roger ffinglass and Thomas Dillon still own that much of the story, beside a farm house and a church on one hundred and eighty acres. The real castle may have been a room, a hall, a boundary or a memory; Ardcath keeps its shape alive by refusing to confirm which.

Located in a field known as the Castle field (http://www.meathfieldnames.com/index.php/database-and-mapping) on the broad summit of Ardcath Hill. There is no record of a castle at Ardcath, but according to the Civil Survey (1654-6) Roger ffinglass of Ardcath and Thomas Dillon of Balgeeth owned 180 acres there and the premises inclueded ‘a farme house and a church’ (Simington 1940, 27). Fragments of the building were uncovered in the 1920s during quarrying activity which is described in the Schools Manuscript Collection (1938). The Castle field is marked on a map of Ardcath, by Thomas Farrell (1899) (pers. comm. Mr Colin Byrne, Briarleas, County Meath), but at present its precise location is not known. Compiled by Geradine Stout Date of upload: 13/03/2012

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.