Ballyfoyle Castle (in ruins) — Ballyfoyle

On the E side of a farmyard which is located on the E side of a valley adjacent to a small stream, in rolling grassland. There are fair to good views along the valley though they are limited to E and W where the land rises. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 465) the castle, ‘was built, or was occupied soon after its erection, by the Purcells, who were the feudal lords of the greater part of the present Catholic parish of Muckalee, during the 15th and 16th centuries and early part of the 17th. Under the Cromwellian regime, Philip Purcell, being an Irish Papist, was declared to have forfeited his estate of Ballyfoyle, which was thereupon granted, with Ballyfoyle castle, to one of Cromwell’s followers named Tobias Cramer’. The castle continued to be inhabited, together with a 17th-century house (KK014-023002-) which was attached to it, until c. 1748, about three years after the house had unexpectedly collapsed (ibid.). In c. 1810 the upper portion of the castle was removed, ‘including the garret and one or two storeys underneath it, [which] was thrown down to supply materials for building purposes’ (ibid.). A rectangular tower house (ext. dims. 12.8m N-S; 8.5m E-W; N wall is actually the NW wall etc.) surviving to third-floor level, built of roughly coursed limestone rubble (wall T 2.3m) with dressed quoins and a base-batter (H 3.2m). The lower portion of the quoins are robbed out to a height of c. 3m. All surviving doorways are pointed and the windows are ogee-headed within wide embrasures. The tower house is entered via a doorway at the E end of the N wall with yett-hole at the apex. This leads into a lobby with a small barrel-vaulted chamber or guardroom to the W, a doorway to the E giving access to a spiral stair rising in the NE angle and an opposing doorway giving access to the main ground-floor chamber. Apart from the small ground-floor chamber, there are no other vaults in the tower house, the upper chambers being carried on wooden floors supported on punch-dressed corbels. The ground floor is lit by a single-light window in the E wall with a gun-loop in the S splay of the embrasure. There was another window in the W wall but this window embrasure has been broken through to create a large opening. The first floor consists of a small chamber running along the N wall and a larger chamber to the S, accessed from the spiral stair. The main chamber at second-floor level is accessed from the spiral stair and is lit by a single-light window at the S end of the E wall, a blocked-up double-light window in the S wall and a single-light window at the N end of the W wall. A doorway in the S wall of the W window embrasure gives access to an L-shaped mural chamber lit by an angle-loop. There is also a doorway in the W wall of the S window embrasure which gives access to an L-shaped chamber also lit by an angle-loop. The main chamber has a large fireplace at the S end of the W wall. A doorway in the N wall of the main chamber opens onto a small chamber lit by a window in the N wall and an angle-loop. Also at second-floor level, but accessed from the spiral stair, is a small garderobe in the E wall lit by a single window. The presence of a gun-loop and the lack of a main vault suggests a late 16th-century date for this tower house. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 18 May 2020