Castle

Depicted on the Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of ‘The Liberties of the Citty of Kilkenny’ as a tower house type castle on a mound, located in what is now the southern portion of Brownstown townland (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). The townland is named as, 'Brownestowne 3 p[ar]ts: Abbyland in many small p[ar]cels' (ibid.). Doyle (1981) in a study of raths in the vicinity of Kilkenny City, notes in, 'Lower Brownstown (near Johnswell Road at Kingsland) Beside a farmyard, there is what tradition says is a rath. Very likely it is a rath but its height has been very much increased by the movement of earth away from it, and it seems that its top was levelled. It is now a semi-circular mound, about twenty yards [c. 18m] in width. So much work has been done around it that it is difficult to say what its original shape was. Apart from being rather small it differs in other ways from the raths already mentioned. It is not on a hill, it is on gently sloping ground, and is near a stream'. It is possible that this feature (KK019-062----) may relate to the castle site. The precise location of both it and the castle are unknown within this portion of the townland. See attached: KK019-063----_01 extract from Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of ‘The Liberties of the Citty of Kilkenny’ (Hib. Reg., courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) KK019-063----_02 extract from Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of ‘The Parrish of St. Johns in the Liberties of Kilkenny’ (Hib. Reg., courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 12 October 2020

A tower house castle built in the 17th century, depicted on the Down Survey map of 1654–5; its location in the Liberties of the City of Kilkenny suggests it may have been held by a local gentry family or civic authority, reflecting the defensive and administrative landscape of post-Turnberry Kilkenny.