What is recorded here

Ballyharran castle first appeared in 1574 when Thomas Synott passed it to his son John, but no one now knows which field holds its bones. The family clung to the place through the decades, holding forty acres beside the stone until Walter Roche took over a slate house and wider land by 1654. Whatever the building was, it outlived its makers and vanished into the ordinary ground of County Wexford.

References to Ballyharran date from 1550 when Robert Synott bequeathed land at Ballyharran to his son Thomas. The castle at Ballyharran is first mentioned in 1574 when Thomas bequeathed it to his son John, who died in 1582 (Jeffrey 1979, 94). In 1628 Robert Synott is in possession of the castle and 40 acres at Ballyoran (Ballyharran), but according to the Civil Survey (1654-5) Walter Roche of the unknown Clonlough and Newtown (WX037-016----) owned ‘a slate house’ and 120 acres at Ballytarfan (Ballyharran) (Simington 1953, 113). The exact location of the caslte is not known. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 13 December, 2012

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