Castle (in ruins) — Castleleiny

Situated on natural rock outcrop in undulating countryside with extensive views. The poorly preserved remains of a three-storey late sixteenth/early seventeenth-century fortified house (int. dims. 40m E-W; 26m E-W) situated on rock outcrop which has been scarped around its edge and fortified with a bawn wall (TN029-081002-), the grass-covered wall-footings of which survive to a height of 0.75m. A destroyed entrance into the bawn is visible in the SE angle protected by a destroyed gatehouse (dims. 10m E-W; 4.5m N-S) the wall-footings of which survive. This single pile, two-roomed gatehouse was built against the N face of the S wall of the bawn in the SE angle flanking the entrance. Only the N half of the fortified house, located in the NW angle of the bawn, survives. The walls of the building are constructed with roughly coursed limestone rubble with base-batter visible. Originally the building was L-plan in shape, the SE tower of which is now completely destroyed. It was later converted into a Z-plan house by the addition of a single pile gable-ended house (dims. 22m N-S; 4m E-W) onto the NW angle of the building. The line of the gable and axial chimney stack are still visible on the W end of the N wall. The surviving remains consist of two small towers in the NW and NE angles both of which contained stairs giving access to smaller chambers at first and second-floor levels. At the base of the S wall of the NE tower is the lower punch-dressed rebated jamb of a doorway which gave access to the ground-floor chamber, now destroyed. In the N wall, at first-floor level there are two two-centred pointed doorways. The doorway off-centre to the E gave access from the first floor to the stairs in the NE tower while the door off-centre to the W gave access to the building to the rear of the house in the NW angle via a flat-headed doorway of roughly cut voussoirs. All floors over the main chambers were wooden with corbelled vaults over the small chambers in the NE tower. The tooling consisted of fine punch dressing arranged in a diagonal orientation contained within a punched border. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'a stumpe of an old castle without repayre' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 5). John Morres is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.) 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