What is recorded here

Kilree Castle vanished before the surveyors arrived, leaving only a western shadow on the 1656 map and a house that men later demolished without remembering what it covered. Four roads once cut through the middle of the baile, where coarse castle foundations still showed when people last looked for them. The place may have been a trading knot, a guard post or a lordly kitchen, but its chambers are gone and even its certainty has thinned. What remains is a name repeated in maps, a field that forgot the shape of its own heart, and the chance that Kilree House stood on the bones of something older and less patient.

A castle or fortified house is indicated on the Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Kells, Co. Kilkenny (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). It is located in the W portion of the townland and roughly corresponds to the location of the former Kilree House, which is indicated on both the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map and the 1948 revision. The house has since been demolished and is not visible at ground level. Clark (1903, 216) notes that, ‘of the ancient hill of Kilree few vestiges are to be seen, though in bygone days it was the centre of busy life in the district, four roads met in what was formerly the square in the middle of the baile, where portions of the foundations of a rude castle were traceable a few years since’. Whether this refers to the castle indicated on the Down Survey map is unknown. Though possibly located at the former Kilree House, the precise location of this castle/fortified house is unknown within the townland. See attached: KK027-073----_01 extract from the Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Kells, Co. Kilkenny (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 23 May 2023

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