Castle — Cranagh

Situated on flat pasture in undulating countryside. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as the 'ruines of an old castle' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 28). John Purcell is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.). A circular tower house (ext. diam. 12.9m; wall T 3.1m) built with roughly coursed limestone rubble which now stands three storeys high but originally stood higher and was probably truncated in the eighteenth century by the occupants of a nearby Georgian house. Access to the tower house was via a two-centred pointed doorway of chamfered limestone at SE which lead into a lobby protected by an overhead murder-hole. A guardroom is located off the lobby to the E. A second lobby further in, also protected by an overhead murder-hole, gives access to spiral stairs and the ground-floor chamber. There are wooden floors over the ground and second floor carried on wall-plates supported on corbels with a circular vault over the first floor springing from floor level. All windows are flat-headed slit opes contained within large segmental-arched embrasures. The second floor has been greatly modified in the eighteenth century. There is a possible garderobe chamber at W at this level and a mural chamber at S. An eighteenth-century bawn (TN029-087002) located to the S of the tower house possibly incorporates part of the original bawn with a possible seventeenth-century gable-ended thatched house incorporated into the E wall of the bawn. 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