Castle in ruins — Kilcloony (dunmore By.)

In grassland on a SSE-NNW running ridge overlooking boggy land to the SW. Only two storeys survive of this poorly preserved tower house (ext. dims. 10.6m E-W; 9.2m N-S), which extends into the NW corner of an associated bawn (GA016-062005-). When initially inspected in August 1980, a Bord Fáilte plaque fixed to the N wall provided the following details: ‘Kilclooney Castle and Bardic School. Tower house – 15th-16th century date – home of a bardic family of O’Higgins. The rath of Kilclooney (souterrain still extant) is a short distance to the N. Tadhg Dall Ó hUigín of Sligo (1545-1593) refers to a school of poetry here in the 16th century; ‘seventeen poets of Ulster’s brightest progeny sought learning in Kilclooney of Connacht’. Occupied by Donal Ohigin in 1574. Bryen, Hugh and Tully O Higgin held three parts of Kilclooney in 1641, but their lands were granted to William Burke at the restoration’ (SMR file, 1980). On re-inspection in October 1984, it was noted that the tower house was built on a plinth (H 0.15m) and the double-faced walls were constructed of squared-off mortared limestone blocks with a rubble core. A slight base-batter was evident. A lot of the external wall-facing, particularly on the N and E walls had been robbed out, exposing the rubble core. Most of the surviving architectural features were also either robbed out or destroyed. Access was gained via the robbed-out doorway in the S wall, which was protected by a gun loop in the wall to its E. Immediately inside the doorway there was a small lobby, off which another robbed-out doorway, to its W, led to the barrel-vaulted guardroom. Well-preserved wicker-centring survived on the roof of the vault. A slit window in the W wall was almost completely blocked up. To the E of the lobby access was gained to the spiral stairs in the SE corner and the doorway to the main ground-floor chamber. The roof in this area had collapsed. Only a few of the lower steps of the spiral stairs survived. The stairwell itself was lit by two slit windows. The lower one was intact and its external stonework was dressed. All that survived of the upper one was its slightly splayed rectangular embrasure. A semi-pointed doorway, the only feature that survived intact, accessed the main ground-floor chamber, which was lit by slit windows set in deep embrasures placed off-centre in the W and N walls. Wicker-centring survived on the embrasure of that in the N wall. The wall was breached where the window had been located in the E wall and all that remained of it was its arched embrasure, also wicker-centred. The only feature noted in the S wall was a small partially blocked-up wall-cupboard (Wth 0.54m; H 0.32m) at a height of 0.6m above the ground level. Corbels that carried the beams which supported the wooden floor of the first floor survived in the E and W walls. At 1st-floor level, there was formerly a subsidiary chamber above the main doorway and guardroom. It was lit by a cusped single-light ogee-headed window in the S wall; the window was blocked up and externally only the dressed stones of the window head survived. A doorway off the stairwell would have accessed the main 1st-floor chamber. All that survived of it were the remains of its hanging eye and a single piece of cut and dressed stone. The only other feature visible internally was the centrally placed large arched rectangular embrasure of the window in the N wall. Again wicker-centring survived on the arch. Externally near the N end of the cross-wall a recess was visible in the wall. The barrel-vaulted roof over this floor was intact and its wicker-centring was well preserved. The tower house has been the focus of a detailed survey of the settlement of the Uí hUiginn poets by FitzPatrick (2019) and all of the features noted above are still intact, apart from the lower steps of the spiral stairs. Fitzpatrick (ibid., 11-12) noted that the what was described as a wall-cupboard above, though partially blocked, extended right through the wall and was visible externally towards the base of the wall of the lobby. Its purpose was unclear; it may have functioned as squint or it may have been used for passing items to or from the lobby to the main ground-floor chamber. However, its position so close to the ground is odd. Further security features recorded included a yett hole and bar-slot in the wall to the E of the entrance doorway, the bar-slot of a robbed-out doorway to the E of the lobby, and the bar-slot of the doorway into the main ground-floor chamber (ibid., 10-11; 13, 16; Fig. 6). A wall-cupboard was noted at the W end of the N wall of the guardroom (ibid., 12). Little of the wall fabric survived above the barrel vault. However, a breach at the S end of the W wall indicated the former position of a window on the 2nd-floor level. Also at this level, the wall recess noted above was identified as a mural chamber that would have led to a garderobe, which would have serviced the main 2nd-floor chamber. Its exit chute had become visible externally toward the base of the N wall as a result of the further robbing out of its facing-stones. Almost all of the external facing-stones on the E wall have now been removed (ibid., 22-3). On the basis of the survival of a number of rounded dressed quoinstones on the SW corner, the tower house can be dated to the 15th century (ibid., 9). Traces of a field system (GA016-062002-) are visible to the N, E and S of the tower house and a rath (GA061-064----) lies c. 140m to the NW. (Nolan 1901a, 117; CUCAP ATF 57; Alcock et al. 1999, 410) Under the Community Monuments Fund, conservations works were carried out on the tower house in 2021. The works concentrated on stabilising the tower and making it waterproof (Doherty 2021). Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 1 December 2022