Gort

A ruined castle at Killaghan is depicted on the Strafford map of c. 1636 (Simington 1949, Athlone (263)) and Sir Luke Dillon of Lough Glynn (RO020-003001-) owned 256 acres there in 1641. He also owned over 1300 acres elsewhere in St John’s parish, which the family retained through the Cromwellian settlement (ibid. 114-5). The house is situated on a slight ENE-facing slope. A rectangular block of two storeys and attic (ext. dims 15.35m ENE-WSW; 7m NNE-SSE) faces S, but the S and most of the N walls do not survive. There was a doorway towards the W end of the N wall and large fireplaces at each floor in the E and W gables, but only the attic had windows in the gables. A flanking tower to the SE (ext. dims 7.5m NNW-SSE; 6.2m ENE-WSW) has fireplaces in the S wall at its two floors and attic, an oven and two gun-loops in the E wall, and doorways to the outside and the main block in the N wall at the ground floor. A similar flanking tower to the SW (ext. dims 6.5m NNW-SSE; 6.15m ENE-WSW) has doorways to the main block and the outside at ground level in the N wall with windows on the E and W walls. The first floor had at least one window and possibly three gun-loops in the E wall. There is a false chimney-stack over the gabled S wall. The two flanking towers have string-courses beneath the roof-line. Archaeological testing (05E1192) c. 70-80m to the SE failed to produce any related material (Tierney 2005). The house is within a rectangular bawn (RO045-107002-) (dims c. 52m N-S; c. 28m E-W) defined by a low scarp (H 0.3m) down to the interior at N and an external scarp (H 0.4m) at S. Its W edge may be defined by a N-S drystone wall, and its E edge has been removed by a N-S public road. W and N of the bawn is an L-shaped walled garden (RO045-107003-), existing mostly on the W side (dims 160m NE-SW; c. 70m NE-SW) of the public road but extending across to the E side (dims c. 75m NW-SE; c. 75m NE-SW) at N. It is defined by clay-bonded walls at NW and SW which narrow with height (Wth of base 0.6m; Wth of top 0.4m; H 2.3m). The garden walls have two robbed pointed entrances (Wth 2.3m; H 1.8m) towards the S end of the SW wall, and a single similar entrance in the NW wall. See the attached view taken from the SE Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 24 August 2010