Castle (in ruins) — Buolick

In relatively flat terrain, with earthworks immediately W of the tower house, with good views in all directions, a ringwork and bailey (TS048-020003-) is visible on a ridge 200m to the E and a church (TS048-020002-) and graveyard (TS048-020004-) are visible c. 170m to the WSW. A marginal entry in the Laud Misc. 610 gives the construction date for the tower house as 1452, stating that it was built in the year the Earl of Ormond died on St. Bartholomew's Day (that being James Butler the 4th Earl), 'by the son of Richard [Butler] in the same year' (Dillon 1963, 147). The Civil Survey (1654-6) gives James Earle of Ormond as the proprietor of Buolick in 1640 and states that 'Upon this land stands a good castle' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 128). William Barker of Kilcooley was living in the castle in 1707 (Neely 2005, 45). This rectangular tower house (ext. dims. 11.68m N-S; 9.77m E-W; S wall T 1.8m; N wall T 1.85m; E wall T 1.74m) is built with limestone rubble, roughly coursed, with good cut-stone quoins and a base-batter. Three storeys survive, with a pointed vault over the ground floor and a high barrel vault over the second floor which has been adapted as a roof. On the exterior W wall an incised roof scar of a later building extends at a 45 degree angle from beneath the first-floor window northward up to the present roof level, the S wall of which appears to have been keyed into the wall beneath the first-floor window where masonry has been removed, and there appears to be a crude line of floor joists c. 1.2m above the doorway. This later building may have been erected when the tower house was re-occupied in the early 18th century by William Barker (Neely 2005, 11). The tower house was entered through a pointed doorway, at the N end of the W wall, which has yett holes at the apex and in the S recess. This leads into a lobby which was protected by an overhead murder-hole accessed from a wall cupboard at first-floor level. The lobby gave access to the ground floor chamber opposite and to a mural stair which rises in the W wall. The ground floor (dims. 7.23m N-S; 5m E-W) was lit by three cross-loops, those in the N and E wall flat-headed and that in the S wall round-headed, all within round-headed embrasures. There are wall cupboards at N and S ends of the E wall. The mural stairs is lit by a flat-headed window at the W end of the S wall and it continues to rise in the S wall. Access to the first floor is through a pointed doorway in the SW angle from the stairs. There is a slop-stone in the wall of the stairwell opposite this doorway. The first-floor chamber (dims. 7.66m N-S; 5.36m E-W) was lit by three windows, a flat-headed single light towards the S end of the W wall, a pointed single light at the E end of the S wall and a broken-out window in the E wall, all within round-headed embrasures which continue to floor level. There was a fireplace, now broken out, N of centre in the W wall, the flue of which is visible rising through the vault. In the NE angle there was a doorway, now broken out, which accessed an L-shaped garderobe chamber. The garderobe chamber (L 4.8m E-W; Wth 0.93m; H 2.02m) is lit by two flat-headed loops, at the N end of the E wall and E end of the N wall, and one very small, flat-headed loop near the centre of the N wall. The chamber terminates W of centre of the N wall of the tower house and the chute exits at the base of this wall. The second floor was carried on wooden beams, the surviving corbel supports for which are in the E and W wall. It is entered from the mural stairs via a flat-headed doorway with a door recess cut into the vault. The chamber is lit by a flat-headed single light roughly centrally placed in the N wall. There is a blocked up fireplace mid-way along the E wall which has been built into the vault. The mural stairs continues beyond the second-floor doorway up to the SE angle but the building does not survive above the vault over the second-floor. At the second-floor landing there are three put-log holes, two of which are opposing, which possibly supported a framework for an internal defence. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011