Bawn in Ballyragget

On the E bank of the River Nore, on the S side of the town of Ballyragget (KK010-001----). Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 92) refers to a popular tradition which credits Mairgread ni Gearoid [Margaret Fitzgerald], who married Pierce Ruadh, Earl of Ormond about 1485, as responsible for the construction of the castle. Lewis (1837, vol. 1, 162), notes that this castle ‘had been a favourite residence of the celebrated Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, Countess of Ormonde, who is said to have frequently issued from the castle at the head of her armed retainers, to ravage the property of such of the neighbouring families as she deemed to be her enemies’. In 1580 Richard Butler, the youngest son of Piers Rua, the nineth Earl of Ormond, was raised to the peerage and given the title of Viscount Mountgarret (Nolan 1979, 45). Richard had inherited Ballyragget which became the principal seat of this junior branch of the Ormonds (ibid.). Lewis (1837, vol. 1, 162) describes how, in 1600, ‘the town was garrisoned by the forces of Sir George Carew, Lord-President of Munster, when the sons of Lord Mountgarret, to whom it then belonged, were in rebellion against the crown, and had engaged with O’More to arrest the Earl of Ormonde’. The garrison consisted of, ‘thirty foot [soldiers] left in a ward in Mountgarret’s house, called Balliragget’ (O’Grady 1896, vol. 1, 26). The castle and bawn are depicted on the Down Survey (1665-6) parish map of ‘Donogmore’ and the accompanying terrier records, ‘At Bellaraggitt a Castle and Bawne’ with Lord Mountgarrett, Irish Papist, listed as proprietor. A roughly square crenelated bawn (dims. c. 100m ENE-WSW; c. 91m NNW-SSE) with two-storey round turrets at each angle. There is a tower house (KK010-001001-) N of centre in the interior. Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 93) describes the bawn as a, ‘court-yard wall, turreted at the angles, and surround by a deep fosse, is in excellent preservation’. According to Lyng (1946-7, 12), ‘a moat formerly surrounded the bawn. Remains of the moat may still be seen outside the north wall’. The bawn is entered through a round-headed archway N of centre in the E wall. It is protected by gun-loops on either side and overhead by a double machicolation resting on corbels. The S portion acts as a murder-hole and there are three gun-loops in the wall of the machicolation, one in the centre and one on either side. S of this there is a row of houses, with their back yards running up to the bawn wall. A large shed has been built along the E end of the N wall. The W wall of the bawn kinks in S of centre, the angle of the kick-in being projected by gun-loops. Within this kink there is a second entrance, a round-headed archway protected on either side by gun-loops. Internally the bawn has a wall-walk which accesses gun-loops. Some lengths of wall-walk have subsequently been made redundant by filling the top of the wall-walk with mortared rubble with a curved profile. On the 25-inch OS map there are buildings running internally along much of the W half of the N wall and running N-S from the E end of this range of buildings, which are now removed. There is another range running internally E-W from the centre of the W wall, this still survives. The N portion of the bawn has been used as a yard, with a concrete ground surface. Internally there is a shed mid-way along the N portion of the W wall and two sheds in the NE quadrant, one along the N wall and the other, not joined, but at right angles c. 4m to the W. An inserted curving wall runs from the W end of the S wall of the tower house to S of the entrance in the W wall of the bawn.