Ballymackey Castle (in ruins) — Ballymackey

Situated on level ground in the middle of a pig farm, surrounded by undulating pastureland. A rectangular tower house (dims. 14.7m x 9.4m; wall T 1.65m) of coursed, uncut limestone blocks with good quoins and base-batter. The entrance, in the S wall, has yett-holes over the door and on the E rebate, and gives access to a lobby now blocked off. A guardroom lies to the E of the doorway with a musket-loop in the SE angle. A blocked, pointed doorway leads from the lobby into the easternmost of two ground floor chambers. The ground floor is divided into two chambers to the E and W, connected by a rectangular doorway in the S end of the partition wall, now blocked. Both chambers are roofed by separate N-S barrel vaults. A low, flat-headed doorway in the E wall gives access to mural stairs leading to the first floor. A small mural passage (inaccessible) lies immediately N of this doorway. The first floor has a large fireplace in the S wall, largely destroyed, with a large concrete pit occupying most of the floor space. There is a fine fireplace in the S wall at second-floor level, with chamfered jambs and the remains of a mantle supported on corbels. Many of the windows are semi-elliptical, some are ogee-headed with hollow spandrels and many have hood-mouldings. The stonework in this tower house was very well executed; internal features, including decorative tooling, suggest a late sixteenth/early seventeenth-century date for the building. 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