Milltown Castle (in Ruins) — Milltown (clogher Par.)

In flat pasture with the Clodiagh River immediately to the E. Anthony O'Dwyer is listed as proprietor in 1640 when the building is described “as a small destroyed Wast castle” (Simington 1934, vol.2, 100). Described by O'Donovan in 1840 as a castle with only the E gable surviving to full height surmounted by a chimney with a fragment of a square tower remaining (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 104). The four-storey tower house is constructed from limestone rubble, roughly coused, with a base-batter, the quoins are only dressed on the upper floor levels. Only the E wall (L 5.5m) survives intact, together with the E end of the N and S walls. There are no remains of the W end of tower house which must have contained the entrance doorway and the stairs. Simple slit opes lit the ground floor, one in the centre of each surviving wall, with larger flat-headed, cut-stone windows at third and fourth-floor levels. Wooden floors were carried on floor joists evidenced at first and second-floor levels, with remains of a barrel vault over the third floor. Good evidence of internal mud rendering, with white limewash over, particularly well preserved at ground-floor level in the S side of the ground-floor window embrasure in the E wall. There is a large flat-headed cut-stone window in the centre of the E wall at fourth-floor level, now partially blocked, and a smaller flat-headed cut stone window at third-floor level in centre of the N wall. Flat-headed windows with bar holes are visible and punch-dressed cut stone surrounds suggestive of a late 16th/early 17th-century date. No remains of the chimney or square tower described by O'Donovan now survive. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011