Castle — tower house in Mobarnan

On a slight rise in relatively flat terrain within a landscaped demesne. The Clashawley River flows c. 100m to the W and a stream flows c. 135m to the SE. A ringfort (TS062-073----) lies c. 300m to the NE and two other ringforts (TS061-110----; TS061-111----) lie c. 380m to the WNW and 500m to the WSW respectively. The Ormond Deeds (COD vol. 4, 269) refer to ‘Dermot mc Conoghor McTeig of Mobernan’ witnessing a land grant in June 1544. In the Augustinian abbey (TS070-040004-) in Fethard there is a wall monument (TS070-040068-) dated 1635 to Richard and Catherine Wale, which states that Catherine was the daughter of Mathew Carran of Mobarnane. According to the Civil Survey (1654-6) in 1640 Mobarnan ‘hath on it a small Castle wantinge repair’ and the proprietor was ‘Teig Carran of Mobarnan Irish Papist’ (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 201). The present Mobernan House is a multi-period building with three main phases, a probable tower house (int. dims. 6.3m N-S), a late 17th/early 18th-century house (int. dims. 6.3m N-S; 15.01m E-W) and an early 19th-century house (ext. dims. 7.7m N-S; 23.4m E-W) built onto the S façade of the latter. The late 17th/early 18th-century house incorporates the remains of a tower house at its eastern end, reusing the N (T 1.08m), E (Wth 1.08m; Wth at base 1.27m) and S walls (T 1.08m). The W wall of the tower house does not survive. From the wall thicknesses it can be established that the E wall survives up to second-floor level, that only 3.3m of the N wall running from the NE angle survives up to first-floor level and that the S wall is only evident at ground-floor level. The late 17th/early 18th-century house has wall thicknesses of 0.8m for the N wall and 0.9m for the S wall. The house also has a low basement (L 8.5m E-W) under the western end. The fact that it does not continue for the full length of the house suggests that it stopped short of the area occupied by the tower house. The external N wall of the tower house has a high, gradual base-batter (H c. 5-6m; Wth 0.3m). Unusually this base-batter continues around the W end of the later attached house and its W gable, intended perhaps to create an external symmetry between the old and new build. There is a chamfered mullion fragment incorporated in the wall of the basement. Several stones incorporated in buildings around the adjacent yard have tooling consistent with medieval masonry. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 25 June 2015