Castle (in ruins) — Graystown

On the W edge of a ridge of limestone outcrop which rises gradually to the E. It occupies a defensive position overlooking the Clashawley river valley below. It has an associated bawn (TS054-037001-) and a later house (TS054-037003-) built partially on and within the bawn. There are the remains of settlement earthworks (TS054-037----) at the base of the outcrop to the N. The townland of Graystown appears to have been named for Walter de Grey who possibly acquired the land in the late 13th century, but certainly held it in the early 14th century (Mills 1914, 33). In 1305, de Grey sold Graystown to Gervase de Raley who, in the same year, sold it on to Henry Laffan, a clerk of Edmund Butler (ibid.; White 1932, 94). The transaction is recorded in Latin in the Red Book of Ormond, where Laffan buys one carucate of land, equivalent to approximately 120 acres, for ten pounds of silver.  One possible candidate for its construction is Thomas Laffan, who in 1483 was recorded as bailiff to the precentor of Cashel Cathredral (O’Donnell 2006, 55). He is probably the same Thomas who in 1521, was referred to as, ‘lord of Ballygroy in county Tipperary’, Ballygroy being a debased version of the Irish, ‘Baile an Ghraeigh’ or Graystown (Curtis 1937, vol. 4, 71, deed 77; https://www.logainm.ie/en/47699). He died c. 1524/5 (O’Donnell 2006, 55). The late 16th/early 17th-century house to the NE of the tower house may have been built by James Laffan ‘of Ballengrey’, and ‘of Grayestown’, who died in 1607, or his son, Thomas Laffan (Curtis 1943, vol. 6, 19, 26, deeds 26, 41; O’Donnell 2006, 54-5). Both were well-established figures in the county, with James serving as Sheriff of County Tipperary in 1585/6 and 1592 and as Sheriff of the Liberty of Tipperary in 1597, and Thomas elected as a Member of Parliament in 1613 (O’Donnell 2006, 54-5). The Civil Survey (1654-6) records Henry Laffan, Thomas’s son, as the proprietor of Graystown in 1640, which had ‘a good castle, a slate house wantinge repaire with a large bawne & severall cabbins' ((Simington 1931, vol. 1, 106). The Down Survey map (1655-6) depicts a castle, a large rectangular bawn with two free-standing houses inside, and three cabins to the north of the castle (National Library of Ireland MS 721). Following the Cromwellian confiscations of 1652, the Laffan’s of Graystown were transplanted to Galway (Simington 1970, 93-4). The land was initially granted to Eliah Greene, but by 1659, as recorded in the Census of Ireland, ‘Giles Cooke gent’ was named as the Cromwellian grantee of ‘Graistowne’ (O’Donnell 2006, 54; Pender 2002, 296). The tower house (ext. dims. 9m x 13m; N, S and E wall T 0.8m, 2.06m and 2.16m respectively), dating to the second half of the 15th century, is built of limestone rubble, roughly coursed, with a gradual, very high, base-batter (H 4m; Wth 0.45m). The S wall has largely collapsed, and at the NW angle only the corbels of a bartizan survive. A second double corbel, immediately E of the bartizan, appear to be all that remains of a machicolation which would have defended the main entrance.  It appears to consist of five stories, four below the stone vault and one above. However, the floor immediately below the vault may not be a complete floor, with only one corbel and beam hole surviving to suggest a floor level but no corresponding survival in the well-preserved wall opposite. This suggests that there may have been a gallery along the W wall.  The tower house was entered through a pointed doorway at the W end of the N wall, with steps up to the door which is raised above the present external ground level of rock outcrop. The doorway has an external, splayed rebate in the double chamfer and punch dressing on the jambs with drafted margins, a yett-hole in the E jamb and another at the apex. On entering the tower house there is a small guard chamber (Wth 0.9m; L 2.1m) to the W, roofed with flat-lintels. Immediately opposite the main doorway there is a broken-out opening, which possibly contained a cross-loop. A second lobby was entered to the E, presumably through a doorway now missing. One or both of these lobbies was likely to be defended from above by a murder-hole, accessed via a trapdoor/s in the wooden floor, no longer extant, of the small chamber above the lobby area. The second lobby leads S, via a collapsed doorway, to the main ground floor chamber, and E, through a pointed doorway to a spiral stair, the stone steps of which have been broken out. The ground-floor chamber was lit by a round-headed single-light in the N and E walls and a broken-out window centrally placed in the S wall. There are also two wall cupboards in the E wall.  The first floor was entered through a pointed doorway from the spiral stairs at the NE angle. It rested on a wooden floor supported by paired corbels on the E and W walls with corresponding beam-holes for the wall-plate. This chamber was lit by a flat-headed single-light in the E and W walls. The S wall has largely collapsed.  The second floor was also entered from the spiral stairs and was carried on a wooden floor. It was lit by a flat-headed single light in the E wall. At the S end of the E wall the jambs of a fireplace survive. At the W end of the N wall a flat-headed doorway gives access to a mural chamber. This floor is roofed by a pointed stone vault. At the N end there is a lower stone vault which supports a passage to a garderobe in the W wall, the exit chute of which can be seen externally. From this passage, at the E end, there is a flat-headed doorway which leads to a narrow mural chamber, built into the haunches of the main vault, running southward in the E wall. As suggested above, it is possible that there was a gallery arrangement on the W wall under the vault. This would explain how the narrow mural chamber, built into the haunches of the main vault in the W wall at this level, was accessed. This mural chamber is not related to the garderobe as it is too far S. The only spaces accessible from the spiral stair at this level are a mural chamber, the uppermost of the chambers above the lobby, and the adjacent and parallel garderobe passage supported on the lower stone vault. Only the N portion of the solar or main floor above the vault survives, but is inaccessible. It was entered via a flat-headed doorway from the spiral stairs. Visible externally is an ogee-headed single-light window at this level at the E end of the N wall. The spiral stairs, which is lit by a number of flat-headed narrow single lights, continues to the now destroyed parapet level. There are three mural chambers in the N wall. The lowest is above the main first-floor chamber and is entered through a flat-headed doorway from the spiral stairs. It is lit by a flat-headed single light in the N and W walls and has a wall cupboard in the S wall. Its wooden floor rests on a S wall offset and corbels on the N wall. Above this a second mural chamber was entered from the main second-floor chamber. Its wooden floor was supported on corbels. Above this the third mural chamber, entered from the spiral stairs, has a wooden floor and a pointed vault and is lit by a small, flat-headed, single light in the W wall. There are loose architectural fragments lying around base of tower house, including a corbel on the E side and other fragments on the W side.  Compiled by: Jean Farrelly