Castle (in ruins) — Boolabaun

Situated at the base of a N-facing slope in level terrain, incorporated in a farmyard. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'an old castle out of repayre' with 'Thomas Magher of Bollybane' listed as proprietor (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 9). A four-storey tower house (ext. dims. c. 8.6m NE-SW; wall T 2.15m) built of sandstone with limestone surrounds and cut-stone quoins. Farm buildings abut the NE and SE faces with the shadow of another gable abutting the latter face at roughly first-floor level. Elsewhere the exterior is largely obscured by ivy. The tower house is built on a stone plinth which projects out 0.2m from the external face and there is a slight base-batter (Wth c. 0.15m; H 1.4m). There is a bad crack down the wall on the SE face. The entrance is through a round-headed doorway (H 1.65m) placed off-centre at ground-floor level on the NW wall, near the W angle. It is 1.1m H above the external ground level. The doorway has an external double chamfer and is decorated with vertical punch-tooling within margins. This leads into a lobby, with a flat-arched recess immediately to the SW, the doorway to the ground-floor chamber opposite and a doorway leading to a stair passage to the NE. This vaulted passage is in a very poor state of repair and has already partially collapsed. The ground-floor chamber is lit by three single-light windows, two of which are blocked up and one is broken out. The spiral stairs which rise in the N angle are badly broken up to first-floor level and are destroyed beyond this. An L-shaped garderobe chamber, entered from the stairs, runs along the NE face at first-floor level. It is lit by three single lights - the window near the N angle has a slop-stone beneath the sill. The chute is situated in the return near the E angle. The first floor is lit by flat and ogee-headed single lights. An embrasure in the SW wall appears to have been blocked-up, perhaps soon after its construction, and a corbel inserted into this blocking. The blocked ogee-headed window with cusped spandrel is visible on the exterior. The second floor is lit by single-light windows. In the E wall of the NE window embrasure there is a doorway giving access to a garderobe chamber. According to Stout (1984, 130) there 'appears to be another mural passage running off the second floor and alongside the west section of wall which is inaccessible'. In the SW wall there is a broken-out embrasure which appears to be hollow behind. This is a possible fireplace with the S side splayed. There are putlogs on either side to support a lintel. A blocked-up pointed embrasure lies immediately W of this - the W jamb of the possible fireplace forms part of the blocking of this embrasure. The third floor has no visible opes, though a broken-out section may have contained a window. Small mural chambers in the NW wall were accessed from the spiral stairs at first, second and third-floor levels. The first floor rests on a vault, the second and third floors are timber carried on corbels with a barrel vault above the third floor. There is a well c. 100m SE of the tower house which is surrounded by a circular stone wall. According to the ITA survey of 1943 'an underground drain leads to two crudely built, stone reservoirs beside castle and situated on ground higher than base of castle. From the “reservoirs” a surface drain still flows by castle wall and perhaps in olden days this also might have been covered, assuring an abundant supply of fresh water to inhabitants' (OPW files). The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008