Blackwood Castle (in ruins) — Blackwood (robertstown Ed)

According to a date stone bearing the Fitzgerald coat-of-arms above the entrance, this tower house was built by Pyers and Elinor Fitzgerald of Ballyshannon in 1584, although Tickell (1960, 371) says that it was 'rebuilt' at that date. According to Field and the Mullhalls (SMR file), the upper two stories were demolished to provide foundation stones for the Bórd na Móna village at Coill Dubh. The monument stands on the W side of a small farmyard on level pasture c. 30m W of the S-flowing Slate River, and there is a bawn (KD013-016002-) immediately to the W. A poorly preserved, ivy-clad, two-storied, rectangular structure (ext. dims. L 12.8m NE-SW; Wth 8.4m) with a barrel-vault over the ground-floor and rounded external corners, is built of red conglomerate sandstone rubble masonry with occasionally coursed, but undressed, blocks and flags (av. wall T 1.3m). The walls are not battered but each wall, and especially the NE and SW gable walls, tapers gently inwards towards the top. The building is entered through a partially robbed-out, semi-pointed arched, limestone doorway (Wth 1.4m) in the SW wall which is flanked by a musket loop on the NW side. It gives access to a small lobby, with a flat-arched ceiling (H 2.3m) bearing traces of wickerwork centring, from which; to the right (SE) is a small guardroom; to the left (NW) an intra-mural stairs; and straight ahead (NE) the main ground-floor chamber. The guardroom has been altered by the removal of the doorway surround off the lobby, and the insertion of a doorway into an embrasure in the SE wall. Access from the lobby to the main ground-floor chamber is through a semi-pointed arched, limestone doorway (Wth 1.12m; H 1.95m), with a very deep (D 1.85m) drawbar socket on the NW side and a musket loop on the SE side. Opes in the NW, NE and SE walls, with a tree growing in the latter, would have contained windows but are broken out to facilitate the use of the building as a barn into which a cobblestone floor is inserted. The N and E corners each contain two deep and gently splaying musket loops which are angled to protect the external corners. A corbel stone and beam-slot hole near the SW end of the chamber suggest that there was a loft, or a second-floor level, under the barrel-vaulted ceiling. Access from the lobby to the stairs was through a doorway which has been removed, but the scar-line of its robbed-out jamb stones is visible on the SW wall face: the musket loop defending the entrance was accessed from behind (NW of) this door. A narrow (Wth 1.35m), partially robbed-out, intra-mural stairs climbs up towards the W corner where it is lit by a small rectangular loop, but is blocked beyond, as it turns NE, and there is no access to first-floor level. Dense ivy cover obscures the walls at first-floor level. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011