What is recorded here

Ballyfarnoge is a castle that vanished so completely it resists every attempt to picture it. Walter Synnott leased the site and nearby lands to Allen Rutlege in 1633, yet the arrangement soon became entangled in a dispute. The castle may have stood as a proud local landmark, a forgotten trading post or merely a misdescribed boundary marker. Its absence is not empty; it is a hole shaped like human ambition, waiting for someone to stop searching for stones and begin listening for the life that disappeared inside them.

A castle at Ballyvarnocke together with certain lands in that townland and Praleagh (Grallagh) were leased by Walter Synnott of Ballybrennan (WX048-001----) to Allen Rutlege in 1633. A few years later this became involved in a legal dispute and the documentation relating to the dispute is the only reference to a castle at Ballyfarnoge (Hore, 1900-11, vol. 6, 497-500). The castle remains unlocated. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 5 September, 2012

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