What is recorded here

Moylish Castle is a ghost even in its own history because no one has found the stones that made it real. A 17th century map draws a tower house beside clustered dwellings, but modern digging at Moylish for sports pitches uncovered only clay and new nails. The castle may be a duplicate entry for Ballynantymore, a mapping mistake, or a building that vanished before anyone thought to remember it. What is certain is that the land has been taken apart and rebuilt while the castle itself refused to be found.

The precise location of Moylish Castle has not been identified. A tower house-like structure surrounded by a cluster of dwellings (LI005-050002-) is depicted in 'Mollish' on the 17th century Down Survey map of the Barony of North Liberties (Hib. Reg.; Westropp 1906-7, 82). The RMP map for Co. Limerick identified Moylish House [ITM 556038/658717] as the possible site of the castle. No surface remains visible of any tower house at this location and no supporting cartographic evidence to suggest that this was the precise location of Moylish Castle. Could be a duplicate castle entry with Ballynantymore Castle (LI005-013----). Archaeological testing carried out at Moylish by Ken Wiggins under licence No. 01E0101 was summarised as following; 'Extensive stripping and grading work relating to the construction of three playing pitches on a fourteen-acre field at the rear of the Limerick Institute of Technology at Moylish was monitored over several weeks from November to December 2001. The work did not uncover any archaeological features or contexts. No artefacts of archaeological interest were noted in the topsoil. Two spreads of blackish clay on the surface of the boulder clay were uncovered at a point towards the northern end of the site, associated with steel nails and other metal pieces, possibly derived from construction activity around 30 years ago on the nearby housing estate of Cliona Park' (www.excavations.ie). See attached 1657 Down Survey barony map of North Liberties (Hib. Reg.) showing Moylish Castle Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 09 January 2020

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