Gormanstown Castle (in ruins) — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

The west door still carries carved crosses and circles, though the rest of the castle has thinned into grass and river silt. It stood beside the Morningstar River with a vaulted lower room and walls thick enough to brake a charge, small enough to feel like a chamber rather than a palace. The Fox family held it through pardon, survey and decay until the civil records called it ruined, and even that much has mostly vanished. What remains is a shape in the land: a narrow shadow near water, marked once, forgotten twice, and still waiting to be read.

Situated on grassland immediately W of a stream and 110m W of the Morningstar River. On the 1840 ed. OS 6-inch map the castle building is shown standing in the N quadrant of a woodland plantation. No surface remains visible today of castle site on Digital Globe aerial photographs. Castle depicted standing beside the river on the 1654-57 Down Survey map of Atheneasy parish (NLI, Ms 718). Gormanstown Castle described by Westropp (1906-7, 184) as following; '1574 Pardon to Edm. Fox, alias Boskagh, of Gormanstown (Fi. 2472). 1583 Ballygorman, alias Gormanstown, in Poblebuskagh, alias Foxe's country, Jas. ffoxe (Des. R., 3b ; Peyton, p. 11). It was held by the same family till 1655; Gormanstown, decayed C[astle], Edm. ffox. (C.S., xxxi., p. 13). Fabric - It stands beside the Morning Star River; and measures 17½ feet [5.3m] by 8 feet [2.4m] inside; walls, 3 feet 9 inches [1.14m] thick. Two doors to the east and west, the latter carved with crosses and circles. It is 24 feet [7.3m] high, and has the lower room vaulted (O.S.L., 8, p. 275).' The 1654-56 Civil Survey of Limerick recorded that Edmond Ffox of Bulgaden possessed in the townlands of Adamstown and Gormanstown, 'two decayed Castles [LI040-167-] 12 Cabbins & a Mill Seat upon it' (Simington 1938, 102). Castle remains described in 1942-3 as, 'Only a fragment of the west wall of this castle remains' (O'Kelly 1943, 170). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 24 February 2020

Built by the Grady family in the 17th century, Gormanstown Castle is remembered as a historic family seat that reflects the regional gentry's influence during the early modern period in Ireland.

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