What is recorded here

Ballagh Castle is a grass-covered rubble mound on marshy ground near Lough Funshinagh, marked on an 1837 map but absent from earlier records despite local ownership in the 1640s. Its earthwork and broken fence suggest a forgotten defensive site rather than a grand residence. The lake beside it swallows and returns land with the seasons, as if the castle itself keeps appearing and disappearing from history.

On low-lying marshy ground c. 700m from the N shore of Lough Funshinagh, a large turlough. A castle at Raharowbeg is not marked on the Strafford map of c. 1636 although William Mc Hugh Kelly owned over 600 acres in Ballagh and Raharrowbeg in 1641 (Simington 1949, Athlone, (215), 115), and no references to a castle are known, although it is marked on the 1837 edition of the OS 6-inch map. The castle is a grass-covered rubble mound (dims 22m NNW-SSE; 18m ENE-WSW; max. H 2.1m) at the NW perimeter of a D-shaped grass-covered enclosure (RO045-084002-) (dims 64m NE-SW; c. 50m NE-SW) defined by a fosse (at NE: Wth of top 4m; Wth of base 1-1.2m; int. D 0.95m; ext. D 0.4m) NW-ESE and a NW-SE drain at SW, but the perimeter at ESE-S cannot be identified. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 24 August 2010

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