What is recorded here

Ballinafid Castle stood beside Lough Owel with an orchard, yet no stone or ditch remains visible in Clanhugh Demesne today. The 1659 Down Survey called it a fair castle and placed it near Richard Delamarr's land, while local memory still points to Ballynafid without naming a exact spot. It vanished from the earth but not from the area's imagination, leaving behind a boundary marked only by water, fields and stubborn recollection.

No surface remains visible of Ballinafid Castle. According to Mrs Harvey Kelly of Clanhugh there is a tradition of a castle in the Ballynafid area’ (ASI Field Report 24/08/1983). The precise location of this castle has not been identified. The medieval castle is depicted as a tower house type structure on the 1659 Down Survey parish map of Leny standing on the lands of 'Richard Delamarr' an 'Irish Papist' (NLI, MS 723-4). The castle was located between Lough Owel and a smaller lake depicted as 'Logh Laghen' on the Down Survey map placing it in the present townland of Clanhugh Demesne in the area around Clanhugh Lodge. On the Down Survey map of Corkaree barony the castle is shown standing close to he shoreline of Lough Owel and the townland boundary with Kilpatrick. The house marked as 'Clanhugh Lodge' on the 1837 ed. OS 6-inch map is roughly located in the same area where Ballynafid Castle is depicted on the Down Survey maps. The castle is described in the Down Survey map as a 'fair Castle by the Lough side with a Orchard' (WM011-077001-). The terrier of the Down Survey parish map of Leny recorded that ‘there are in this parish six castles vizt. at Rathbennett (WM011-060----), Farrow (WM011-055----) Cullanhue (WM011-007----) Ballinafid each one & at Ballinilack two castles (WM006-048----/-049----)’ (ibid.). Compiled by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 23 August 2017

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