What is recorded here

Maurice O'Connor broke ground for the Ballymahon castle in 1401, but no marker exists to show where the walls stood. James Dillon called it strong near the Inny ford in 1641 before the Crown seized his lands and men buried the stones under an ordinary house. The castle vanished into the town itself, leaving only cellars hidden beneath domestic floors.

In 1401 the annals record that the ‘castle of Baile Í Mhathan was begun by Muiris son of Conchobhar’ (Ó hInnse 1947, 164). In 1620 a land grant to James Mc William Ferrall included the 'castle, town [LF027-003006-] and lands of Ballymahan' (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, 466). Mason (1819, vol. 3, 338) noted that, during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, it was the residence of Sir James Dillon Jnr., whose lands were later confiscated by the Crown. He described it as a ‘strong castle, near a ford over the Inny, and near the present bridge [LF027-003003-]', which had ‘been long since taken down, the cellars of it remain under a house erected on its ruins’ (ibid.). Its precise location has not been identified. (Lewis 1837, vol. 1, 146; Simington 1961, vol. 10, 48; Gillespie and Moran 1991, 217) Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 26 September 2012

Built by Muiris son of Conchobhar in 1401, the castle in Ballymahon is remembered for its early 15th-century construction and later inclusion in a 1620 land grant, reflecting its ongoing local significance through the early modern period.

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