Moycarky Castle — Moycarky

Situated on the summit of a natural rise with good views in all directions. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'a bawne and castle in repaire' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 57). Wm Cantwell is listed as proprietor in 1640 (ibid.). A four storey tower house with an attic (dims. 10.5m N-S; 7.5m E-W; wall T 1.7m) and a two-storey turret running the length of the N wall, built of roughly coursed limestone rubble with large well-cut quoins and a high, slim base-batter (H 2.4m). There is a pointed vault over the first floor - all other floors were timber. A bad crack along the N end of the E side is putting the NE angle in danger. At battlement level there is a machicolation over the doorway and a bartizan on the SW angle. The parapet has stepped crenellations with drainage holes at base. The garderobe chute exits at the E end of the S wall. The original doorway was at the S end of the E wall - only the S half survives. A later entrance has been inserted immediately N of this and the intervening space has been blocked up. The former doorway led to a lobby with a murder-hole directly above. To the S the inner wall face has been robbed out and crudely smoothened giving the appearance of a very small chamber. The lobby gave access to the ground-floor chamber and the mural stairs, which rise along the E wall and have been partially blocked by a concrete-block wall. This ground floor chamber was lit by a window in each wall, all blocked or broken out except that in the W wall. The broken out E window now leads into a cattle-crush. There is a partially blocked-up wall cupboard at the E end of the S wall. Two-pointed arch recesses in the N wall at ground floor level. The first floor is lit by a flat-headed single-light in the centre of the S wall, with a blocked ope in the E wall. The murder-hole was accessed from a window embrasure at the S end of the E wall. There are wall cupboards at the E and W ends of the S wall. The N wall has a narrow doorway at the E end, completely blocked with cement blocks - the jambs on the W side are only partially intact. This blocked doorway led to a chamber, now only accessible through a break in the outer wall, the interior of which has well-preserved plaster. The second floor was entered through a pointed doorway at the W end of the N wall. It has a large wall cupboard in the N wall, smaller cupboards in the S wall and in the sides of the window embrasure in the S wall. The E wall has a fireplace, with only the back surviving, and a flat-headed recess with a rebate for a wooden lid to cover the murder-hole chute. A slop-stone lies beneath the sill of the S window. Opposite the doorway in the passage leading to the third-floor chamber there is a small recess lit by a slit-ope with a well-cut slop-stone sill. In the floor of this recess there is a rectangular opening which gives access to a secret chamber, directly under a mural passage. This secret chamber is a small barrel-vaulted room with wicker-centring and a crude opening in the N wall. The main third-floor chamber is entered through an elliptical-headed doorway in the W end of the N wall with a hanging-eye cut into the embrasure lintel. Another doorway at the E end of the N wall gives access to a turret behind the N gable of the main chamber. There is a possible fireplace at attic level. The second and third-floor chambers were lit by single and two-light ogee-headed windows with evidence of window seats. The attic rested on a timber floor carried in the thickness of the wall. The crease of the steep-pitched gable roof is still visible on the N wall of the covered gallery, high enough to accommodate the attic space below. The covered gallery is entered through a pointed doorway from the mural stairs. The lower chamber of the gallery, at fourth-floor level is lit by a central window in the N wall - the E wall is broken out. At the W end of the chamber there is a stone 'bench' which extends across the width of the chamber. The floor above is supported on corbels, two on both the N and S walls. Spiral stairs in the SW angle give access to the covered gallery at fifth-floor level. The upper chamber of the gallery is entered through a flat-headed doorway from the mural stairs. It is lit by a single-light ogee at the W end of the N wall and the remains of a window on the E wall, largely broken out and roofed with a barrel-vault with well-preserved wicker centring. At this level a flat-headed doorway from the mural stairs leads onto a parapet. Spiral stairs rise in the NW angle at fourth-floor level; a possible doorway with a single jamb remaining leads to the spiral stairs. There is a window opposite the door at the N end of the W wall with a large slop-stone underneath. There is a well-preserved bawn (TN047-068004-) with circular towers at the NE and SW angles and a bartizan at the NW angle. There is evidence of a wall-walk which provided access to cross-loops - two survive in the N wall and one in the E and W walls. The bartizan was accessed via steps from an embrasure in the bawn. The centre of the N wall has been destroyed. The entrance does not survive. The SW angle tower (int. dim. 2.5m; wall T 1.5m) consists of three storeys. The ground floor is entered through a pointed doorway at NE, built at right angles into the internal bawn wall. It has wooden floors throughout, accessed from mural stairs and has gun loops, square, round or cruciform, at every level. The three-storey NE angle tower was subject to alteration in the late eighteenth/nineteenth-century when it was used as a summerhouse or gazebo. The interior was plastered and windows were altered and inserted. It is entered through a pointed doorway at SW and has a number of gun loops. The first floor is entered from the mural stairs through a flat-headed doorway at N. It has a finely executed fireplace with roll-moulding on the jambs and has punch and diagonal tooling, the lintel curves with the wall. A narrow doorway at SW at first-floor level leads outside the bawn. The second floor, most altered, is entered in the E. The bawn appears to be the result of two phases of activity - the first associated with the tower house in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth-century and in the second phase during the seventeenth-century the wall was partially rebuilt and the angle towers were constructed. A sheela-na-gig (TN047-068003-), now lost, was formerly located in the S wall of the tower house. 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