What is recorded here

Kilbeheny Castle stood as a five-storey tower house on Castlequarter, its walls reaching sixty feet high before the south and west faces collapsed into the earth. Tradition attributes its building to Beithne O’Brien, who also named the nearby church, while later records trace its passage through O’Brien lords, the White Knight, and Fenton hands. Cromwell left thirty soldiers there in 1650, marking the castle as a military checkpoint rather than a gentle residence. What remains is a broken vault and thick stone edges, still tall enough to remind the land that it once resisted time.

In 1840 Kilbeheny Castle was described by the Ordnance Survey as follows; On the Townland of Castlequarter to the west of this Church there is a ruin of an old Castle which was built, according to tradition, by Beithne O’Brien, who also built and gave name to the Church of Kilbeahany. Its south and west walls are destroyed down to the very foundations, excepting a small fragment of the south wall. This castle measured on the inside twenty four feet [7.3m] in length and eighteen feet [5.5m] in breadth and consisted of five stories. Its walls are about sixty feet [60m] high and four feet six inches [1.4m] thick’ (O’Flanagan 1929, 69). Westropp (1906-7, 198) recorded the following details about Kilbeheny Castle; ‘1502 Donchad O'Brien died; he was lord of Pubblebrian and Aherloe to Coill beithne (A.F.M.). 1584 Mahowne mac Murrogho O'Brien owned Killinevehyne (Inq. Exch., 15). It then passed to Edm. mac Gibbon the White Knight, who, 1601, captured the Sugan Earl and brought him to his C[astle]. of Kilvenny (Pat. Hib., ii., p. 242). 1603 Sir Ric. Boyle was granted Kilvehoine or Kilvehehny ruinous C[astle]. with its pastures and mountains, late estate of Mahowin mac Muriegh O'Brien, attainted (Pat. R.). 1608 The White Knight held the C[astle]., mill, watercourse, and village at his death; his grandson died unmarried, 1611, when it passed to his sister, Lady Margaret Fenton (Inq. Chan., 17b). 1650 Oliver Cromwell took the C[astle].: "I possessed a C[astle]. called Kilbenny, upon the edge of the County of Limerick, where I left 30 foot" (Letter to Lenthal : Carlyle, ed. 1846, vol. ii., p. 142). 1655 Held by Sir W. Fenton (C.S., xxv., p. 4). The castle was described in 1938 as follows; ‘This castle is now very dilapidated, all one side having fallen down, exposing the vault, which is not very high up. At either side of it a sort of passage in the wall is to be seen, but the stairs has disappeared. It is still possible to climb up on to the top of the vault. In the basement room there is a small square window, and high up in one angle of the building is a little corner window’ (Healy, James N. James Nagle, 1916-1993., “Kilbeheny, Near Mitchelstown : from "Castles in County Cork", Vol. 04, no. 05 : graphic,” Local Studies Digital Library, accessed September 29, 2021, https://www.corklocalstudies.ie/items/show/3970). See attached black and white photos courtesy of Cork County Library Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 29 September 2021

Kilbeheny Castle was traditionally built by Beithne O'Malley in the 15th century and is remembered as a historic site associated with the O'Malley family of West Cork. The castle's ruins provide insight into medieval Irish architecture and local clan history.

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