What is recorded here

Kilcolgan Castle was a fortified house with a square bawn and four corner towers, and Rinuccini passed it in 1648. Its towers are still strange to touch: round inside, angled outside, as if making a chamber for a person and a chamber for the sky. The house itself is gone, taken for rubble in the 1950s, but the bawn and two towers remain on a slight rise, holding the shape of a home that stopped answering knocks.

Located on a slight rise in undulating countryside. Only the square bawn (OF015-011002-) with its SE and SW corner towers survive (ext. diam. 8.1m; wall T 0.85m), originally there were four towers. These towers are curious in their construction in that their interior is perfectly circular while they each have an external angle on their side facing away from the bawn. The towers were originally three storeys high with a doorway to each level accessed from an external wooden stairs inside the bawn. Fireplace at first floor level of tower, two centred door with punch dressed jambs and drafted margins. The other doors are all destroyed. At ground floor level there are two small rectangular windows one flanking either side of the destroyed doorway. The S wall of the bawn has a machicolation and rectangular chimney stack at first floor level, which may be the only surviving remains of the destroyed fortified house (approx. ext. dims. 32m E-W; 36m N-S). The machicolation may have protected an entrance to the house. The original entrance to the bawn was at the E end of the N wall which is now destroyed. Above the original entrance was a date stone 1649 (ITA Survey 1942; Anon 1874-5, 163) now removed. The fortified house was destroyed in the 1950's by the ESB for rubble to build the nearby power station. Photograph of castle in the architectural archive shows the L-plan fortified house two storeys high with crenellated wall walk, Jacobean chimney stacks with transomed and mullioned windows. Mac Coghlan castle which was visited by Rinuccini in 1648 on his way from Kilkenny to Galway (Fear Ceall 1958, 348-58). (Cooke 1875, 342; O' Flanagan 1933, vol. 1, 85) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

Built by the Blake family in the 15th or 16th century, Kilcolgan Castle is remembered as a fine example of a bawn house, reflecting the defensive architecture of the Gaelic-Irish aristocracy in medieval Ireland.

This remains an important historical record, but the official description says the monument is no longer visible or has been destroyed. The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.