What is recorded here

Ballyshannon Castle was a substantial Fitzgerald stronghold in County Kildare, besieged during the Confederate War (1641-53) and now vanished beneath the demesne soil. The 1650 plan shows a three-story double-gabled building with crenelated towers, a circular turret guarding one entrance, and a drawbridge crossing the northern wall of a square bawn. A bastioned fort wrapped the castle, bawn, motte and church into a single defensive knot. No stone or ditch remains visible, yet the geometry is precise enough to walk the lost chambers in imagination and hear the siege still echoing through the grass.

Depicted on an 1853 sketch of an original ‘Plan of the Castle of Ballyshannon, with its Outworks, in 1650’, where it is shown under attack during the Confederate War (1641-53)(Fitzgerald 1899-1902, 447). The plan shows a substantial Fitzgerald castle, consisting of a large double-gabled building, of apparently three stories plus attic, with crenelations on the N facade, and a rectangular tower, also crenelated, projecting from the centre of the N wall, together with a tall circular turret projecting from the SW angle overlooking one of the two entrances. The castle stood in the NE corner of a well-defended square bawn with a crenelated wall and towers at the NW and SE angles. A second entrance, with a drawbridge/causeway, is shown mid-way along the N wall. A bastioned fort (KD032-003001-) encloses the castle and bawn, as well as a motte (KD028-058001-) and church (KD028-058002-) nearby, to the N. No visible surface traces survive. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 21 May 2013

Ballyshannon Castle was built by the O'Donnell clan of Tyrconnell in the 15th or 16th century and later held by Confederate forces during the Irish Confederate Wars. It is remembered for its strategic role in the conflict and its depiction in historical military plans.

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