What is recorded here

Drumnamahane Castle stands as a four-storey limestone tower on a wet Tipperary rock outcrop, its eastern face still bearing two projecting angle towers and the ghost of a destroyed central doorway. The surrounding pasture hides a levelled bawn and possible earthworks, suggesting a enclosed defensive complex rather than a lonely tower. Anyone walking the dense eastern overgrowth today steps through the same poor drainage and extensive views that shaped life inside the ruins.

Situated on natural rock outcrop on flat poorly drained pasture with extensive views. A tall rectangular tower (TN010-018001-) surviving four storeys high built with roughly coursed limestone rubble with base-batter. Two angle towers project from the E face of the tower and the main doorway (now destroyed) was in the centre of the recessed E wall. A possible bawn wall projects out from the SW angle of the tower, elsewhere it is not visible above ground level. There is a possible quarry to the SW of the tower and a natural spring well in a possible enclosure to the E of the tower. The area to the E of the tower was impossible to examine due to dense overgrowth although there is some evidence of possible earthworks that may be the remains of the levelled bawn or possibly levelled buildings inside the bawn (TN010-018003-). An earlier FAS survey carried out in 1985 recorded that the tower house was 'located on an earthen mound surrounded by a ditch outside of which there is a low earthen bank from visible from northwest clockwise through north to northeast' (SMR File 1985). This earthwork or earthen enclosure appears to be the levelled remains of the bawn of the tower house. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload/revision: 10 January 2012

Drumnamahane Castle was built in the late 15th or early 16th century by a local Gaelic lord, likely of the Ó Cearnaigh (O'Carroll) family, who controlled much of the area during the medieval period. The castle is important as a surviving example of a defensive tower house in a strategically elevated position, reflecting the regional power structures and building traditions of early modern Ireland.

This remains an important historical record, but the official description says the monument is no longer visible or has been destroyed. The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.