Carrigrohane Castle (in Ruins) — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Carrigrohane Castle stands as a rectangular ruin on a sheer limestone cliff, its thirteenth-century walls still reaching toward the Lee river before the northern half collapsed into the roadway in 1989. A later corner tower with gun loops suggests the Barretts or Mac Carthys once watched the water from that exposed edge, while a modern staircase now invites visitors to climb the remaining stones. The cliff took back what it could, leaving only the western and northern fragments to mark where human ambition met the patience of rock.

On top of a sheer limestone cliff-face, overlooking Lee river to N, on W side of renovated early 17th-century fortified house (CO073-049002-). N and W walls of rectangular structure (c. 13m N-S; c. 10m E-W), possibly of 13th century date, stand to 1st floor level; lintelled window ope in W wall at ground level, now blocked; large broken central window ope in N wall at 1st floor level. Later corner tower (c. 3m square), probably 15th/16th century, built onto NW corner of structure. This has wicker-centred vault over ground floor; at 1st floor level are remains of two gun loops, but there were probably more. In recent times remains adapted as part of landscaped garden, including building of staircase at S end of W wall to give access to top of corner tower. In 1989 N half of structure demolished by Cork County Council following collapse of cliff-face below onto roadway. Local tradition attributes the founding of this castle to the Mac Carthys, it later passed to the Barretts (Coleman 1910, 4-8; Healy 1988, 35-6). See Excavations 2002, 64-5. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 2: East and South Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1994). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

Carrigrohane Castle was built by the FitzGerald family, the Earls of Kildare, in the late 15th or early 16th century. It is remembered as a significant example of a medieval Irish tower house and for its strategic location on a prominent cliff overlooking the Lee River.

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