What is recorded here

One is tempted to picture a small tower on the western approach to the Athy bridge in 1417, a guard-post or toll-house no bigger than a kitchen, but the facts do not say that. What is known is only that a new tower stood somewhere near the bridge before the White Castle was built, and that it has since disappeared from every clear account. It may have been a castle in the smallest sense, a stone answer to river traffic and border trouble.

According to Bradley et al. (1986a, vol. 1, 45-8), a petition of 1417 notes that a new tower had been recently built on the bridge of Athy. That ‘new tower’ was generally assumed to be the White Castle (KD035-022010-), however, Murtagh (2011, 145-181) conclusively dates the construction of the White Castle to the early 16th-century. The 1417 reference may be to another castle, the precise location of which is unknown, but which may have defended the W approaches, or W end of the bridge (KD035-022008-). Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 11 December 2013

Athy's White Castle was built in the early 15th century, with a new tower added on the town bridge around 1417, and it is remembered as a key defensive and administrative structure in medieval Kildare.

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