What is recorded here

O'Kelly's Castle in Cornalee is a grass-covered rectangular platform on a rise beside Lough Croan, with buried wall traces still visible underfoot at its west and east edges. Richard Dillon held the surrounding Castle Quarter in the mid-seventeenth century, suggesting the place remained occupied and valued long after its castle purpose faded. A small medieval limestone head now sits in a museum, believed locally to have come from this monument, while broken window heads were reused in outbuildings nearby. The castle may have been small, temporary or simply transformed, but its stones clearly travelled into later human life.

Located on a rise in a low-lying landscape c. 150m from the SE shore of Lough Croan, which is called Loughanabrag on the Strafford map of c. 1636 (Simington 1949, Athlone(2)). The Castle Quarter of Corenegee also known as Lisnaguill, amounting to 154 acres, was owned by Richard Dillon in 1641 and he retained most of it in 1662. He was probably connected with the Dillons of Lough Glynn (RO020-003001-), and he owned over 600 acres elsewhere in Cam parish in 1641 and in 1662 (ibid. 99-102). This is a rectangular grass-covered platform (dims of top 12.7m E-W; 8.4m N-S; dims of base 16m E-W; 13m N-S) defined by scarps (H 0.3m generally to 0.5m at E), known locally as O'Kelly's Castle (Gannon 1972). Traces of the walls can be identified underfoot at W (Wth c. 1.3m) and E (Wth c. 1m). A medieval limestone head (RO048-001001-) (H 0.17m; Wth 0.12m; T 0.12m), thought locally to have come from this monument, is now in NMI (Rynne 1966-71), and architectural fragments (RO045-240----), including the heads of two ogee-headed windows are incorporated into outbuildings c. 330m to the NE. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 4 November 2015

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