What is recorded here

Clintstown Castle belonged to the Mountgarrets and stood in a green field above the River Nore until its ruins were removed about 1860. The Down Survey called it a little castle and house in repair, while cannon balls later surfaced in the soil, hinting at violence or defiance behind its modesty. It vanished so completely that no wall remains for a hand to touch, only a field memory and a name preserved in old drawings.

In a fairly level cultivated grass field on a gentle W-facing slope towards a channel of the River Nore. On the Down Survey (1655-6) Parish map of Coolerahin, there is a castle drawn in the W portion of the townland, E of the River Nore. The terrier accompanying the map of records, ‘a little Castle and House in Repaire at Clintstowne with some Cabbins’, with the proprietor listed as ‘Lord MountGarrett Ir[ish] Pa[pist]’. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 199), in the '"castle-field" there was a castle, the ruins of which were removed about 1860; it belonged, as did the whole townland, to the Mountgarrets'. The field is known locally as 'Castle Field' and cannon balls, now missing, were uncovered here in the 1950s. Though not indicated as a castle, a rectangular ruined building (dims. c. 16m x c. 5m), orientated NNW-SSE, is depicted on the 1st (1839) edition OS 6-inch map in this field. It is not depicted on the revised 1947 edition. The castle is not visible at ground level. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of revised upload: 14 January 2019

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