What is recorded here

Boulabally Castle vanished before anyone measured it, leaving only a bawn, a mill and a warning about FitzGerald pride. James Leo took the castle from Morris FitzGerald, then Thomas FitzGerald took it back in 1601, as if stone could be pulled home by blood and memory. By 1655 it stood ruinous in Crome, recorded rather than seen, while Eleanor FitzGerald alias Harris kept the name alive through loss. The missing castle is not a hole in knowledge; it is a trapdoor into the kind of place people stopped drawing because it had already stopped belonging to them.

The precise location of a castle and bawn (LI021-130001-) in the townland of Boulabally has not been identified. Westropp (1906-7, 165) recorded the following details about Boulabally Castle; 'Ger. f. Morris FitzGerald alienated Bollybally C[astle]. to Jas. Leo. It was redeemed by his grandson, Thomas FitzGerald, in 1601. Maur. FitzGerald, of Thomastown, held Buolibally in 1636 with Cahirassa (Inq. Chan., 184). 1655 Ballybolly in Crome, ruinous C.[astle] and bawn; a part of Adare Burgess Lands (C.S., xxiv., p. 38)'. The 1654-56 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that the widow Eleanor FitzGerrald alias Harris, an Irish Papist, was the owner of Boulabally which contained 'a ruinous Castle a Bawne and a Mill (LI021-194----)' (Simington 1938, 146). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 3 December 2020

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