What is recorded here

Knox recorded L-shaped castle earthworks at Cottage in 1911, with a sixty-yard square enclosure joining a much larger rectangle divided into three spaces by slight banks. The site sat close to Cottage Bridge, the old Kilthooye church, and Bellaveel Castle across the Clare River. A wide ditch ran between the two main enclosures, perhaps marking a sunken road rather than a defensive cut. The shape suggests a working estate or fortified residence, not a grand castle, yet its scale and position make it a striking lost landmark.

Knox (1911, 328-330) recorded earthworks associated with a possible castle (MA103-053001-) at the NW end of Cottage townland, 'close to Cottage Bridge over the Clare River, and close to the site of an old church [MA103-052----] called Kilthooye. Bellaveel Castle [MA103-051----] was on the opposite side of the river.' The earthworks were L-shaped in plan, and consisted of rectangular areas defined by banks/ramparts (Wth 2-3.5m) and ditches. At S was an enclosure ‘60 yards square [55m]’, which abutted the E end of the S side of a larger rectangular area ‘nearly 160 yards [146m] from east to west, and nearly 70 yards [64m] from north to south.’ An E−W ditch (Wth c. 4.5m; D 1.5m), which Knox suggested might have been a sunken road, flanked by banks, separated the square enclosure from the larger rectangular enclosure. Slight banks subdivided the large rectangle into three smaller rectangular spaces. Knox considered a point at the junction of the two main enclosures, on the W side, as the site of a castle (MA103-053001-). Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 23 November 2022

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