What is recorded here

Blackcastle in Tipperary held only the walls of an old castle when Thomas Donoghou owned it in 1640. Those walls were all the improvement on the land, and even that trace has vanished from the townland. The castle may have stood beside a lane, hidden under a field or swallowed by ordinary life. Its absence does not diminish it; it refuses to be pointed at and remembered on someone else's terms.

According to the Civil Survey (1654-6) in 1640 the proprietor of Blackcastle was 'Thomas Donoghou of Clonmell Mercht Irish Papist' and 'Upon the sd lands of BlackeCastle stands the walls of an old Castle wch is all the improvemt thereon' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 311). Power (1907, 290) records that no castle remains visible in the townland. The precise location of the castle within the townland is unknown. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011

Thomas Donoghue held Blackcastle in 1640, as recorded in the Civil Survey. The ruins of the castle are significant as a historical marker of early 17th-century landownership and conflict in the region.

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