Castle (in ruins) — Knockagh (drom Par.)

Situated on a low SE-facing slope in undulating countryside with ringforts (TN029-056----, TN029-058----) to the N and a destroyed seventeenth-century house (TN029-59002-) to the S. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'one old castle inhabited yett wanting repaire a broken bawne and the ruins of a stone house' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 58). Sir John Morres is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.). A late sixteenth/seventeenth-century circular tower house (int. dim. 5.7m; wall T 2.4-3m) built with roughly coursed rubble surviving five storeys high with attic above. The main entrance is via a destroyed two-centred doorway at W giving access to a lobby protected by an overhead murder-hole. There is a guardroom off the lobby to the right with access to the spiral stairs to the left from which the ground floor and all other chambers were reached. The ground floor had a wooden ceiling carried on stone corbels and was lit by three single-light slit opes with both internal and external splays. The first floor has a barrel vault and was accessed off the spiral stairs via a two-centred doorway in the NW angle. A mural passage in the W wall at first-floor level gives access to the murder-hole over the lobby. The second floor is accessed off a lobby in the centre of the E wall from which a mural passage was reached leading to a garderobe in the SE angle. This floor has a fine stone cut fireplace in the centre of the W wall with a twin-light elliptical-headed window beside the fireplace in the NW angle off which a mural passage in the N wall was accessed, possibly a kitchen area. The third floor is accessed off the spiral stairs in the NE angle and has a destroyed corbelled fireplace in the centre of the W wall and a twin-light ogee-headed window in the NW angle from which a mural passage in N wall is reached. A mural passage in the E wall accessed off the spiral stairs at third-floor level leads to a garderobe in the SE angle. The fourth floor has a destroyed fireplace off-centre to the N on the W wall with a tall rectangular chimney stack at wall-walk level. Access to wall-walk level is from fourth-floor chamber in the N embrasure of the E window. The S gable of the attic survives with a single-light slit ope. There are four destroyed machicolations at wall-walk level. Mason's marks in the form of crosses and vertical lines are visible on the jambs of doorways and fireplace jambs. All floors above the first floor were wooden carried in the thickness of the wall. Fenestration consists of twin-light ogee and elliptical-headed windows set into segmental-arched embrasures. Jambs of windows display punch dressing of late sixteenth/seventeenth-century date. The OS Letters describe a bawn wall (TN029-059004-) with corner towers and a late seventeenth-century house immediately S of the castle, of which no traces survive (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 184). 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