Ballinard Castle — Ballinard (cloneen Par.)

On a slight rise in gently undulating terrain on the N edge of a flat ridge, the ground level drops slightly to the N of the tower house. There are extensive views from the top of the tower house, with Slievenamon to the S. It is within in a 19th-century farmyard with farm building to the N of the tower house. A 19th-century house has been built onto the S end of the tower house. The first-floor window of the main chamber of the tower house is clearly visible, though blocked up, in the first-floor landing of the house. E of this window, between first and second-floor level of the tower house, are the remains of the roof coping (L c. 1m; c. 45° angle) of an earlier building which adjoined the tower house. Two, rather crude, corbels project from the external S face of the tower house at ground-floor level (H 3.15m to top of corbel) which suggest that this building was two storeys high. The present two-storey house has three-bays, is one room deep and is flush with the W façade but projects out E of the E façade of the tower house. There is a quarry c. 40m W of the tower house. In the Ormond Deeds of 1525 and 1541 Edmund Butler of Ballinard (spelt as Ballenard and Ballynarde respectively) is named as a juror for the Liberty Court of Tipperary (Curtis 1937, vol. 4, 101, 208) and in 1551 ‘Thomas son of Edmund of Ballynard’ is listed as a juror (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 62). In an Inquisition at Clonmel in 1556, along with others named, ‘Richard fitz Edmund Butler fitz Thomas of Ballynarde, kern…..stole 40 horses of Maurice Stoke and others at Cowlkoill [Coolquill]’ (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 74). The Ormond Deeds of 1560 records that Thomas, Earl of Ormond, ‘pardons Oen ne Boly alias Kenedy of Ballynarde, kern….. for all treasons, felonies, murders, etc., outlawries, judgements of execution, pain of death, forfeitures of lands, etc. (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 99-100). The Ormond Deeds record that in 1558 under the extract of fines and amercements, ‘From Edmund Comen, late sheriff of said liberty, of the goods and chattels of Elinore Freyne of Ballynarde at the suit of Peter Butler of Knockelly, 40d; ……of Thomas Butler of Ballynarde at suit of Peter Butler of Knokekille, 40d’ (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 120). Under the fines and amercements of 1560, fines issued ‘From Peter Butler fitz James of Grallagh, late sheriff of said liberty’, for the sum of 40d of the goods and chattels of ….’Thomas Fitz Edmund of Balynarde….’ (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 120-21). In the Civil Survey (1654-56) the proprietor of ‘Ballynard’ in 1640 was ‘Doctor Morrish Roach of Kilcoman Irish papist’ (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 169). According to the Civil Survey, ‘The s[ai]d Doctor Roch possessed under Title of Mortgage or purchase long before the Rebellion. The s[ai]d lands hath on it a good castle yett wanting repayre with a narrow Barbicon a thatcht howse & some few Cottages. Noe water within a quarter of a mile of it’ (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 169). The plaque on the town hall in Fethard, dated 1646, was erected by Lady Amy Everard nee Roche. Amy was the daughter of David, seventh Viscount Roche of Fermoy (Crotty 2012, 15) who, according to Mullally (1862-3, vol. 7, 249-50), lived in Ballinard Castle. According to Mullally (1862-3, vol. 7, 250), when the male line of Roches at Ballinard failed, ‘the estates and property fell to the Lindsay family, their successors by the female line. The present proprietor is John Lindsay, Esq., Barrister-at-law, a learned antiquarian, and a member of your Society [Royal Society of Antiquarians of Ireland]’. The OS Letters (1840) do not mention if the tower house was inhabited, but only that it is ‘in good preservation’ and that ‘Some of its windows have been modernized’ (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 69-70). This tower house is currently inhabited. A four-storey tower house (ext. dims. 9.25m N-S; 11.3m E-W above the base-batter; wall T 2.02-2.2m) with mural chambers at parapet level on the E and W walls. It is composed of roughly coursed limestone rubble with well-cut limestone quoins and has a base-batter (H 3.7-4.1m; Wth 0.3-0.38m). The NW angle rests on a stone foundation plinth. A double garderobe chute exits towards the N end of the E wall. The windows are round-headed at ground level, otherwise flat or ogee-headed and chamfered externally. The tower house was entered at the S end of the W face, via a partially reconstructed pointed doorway with a yett-hole on the N side. This leads to a lobby with a guardroom to the S and a doorway to the N to a second lobby. The E wall of the lobby was broken out, it is within an embrasure in the ground-floor chamber (dims. 5.25m N-S; 6.15m E-W) and is likely to have contained a loop. A reconstructed cross-loop has been inserted. The guardroom has a wall cupboard in the E wall and a doorway, now blocked up, had been broken out in the S wall to give access to the adjoining house. From the second lobby there is a doorway to the ground-floor chamber to the E, another doorway to the N leads to a short lobby at the base of the stair which rises as a spiral stair in the NW angle. The ground-floor chamber was lit by three windows, in the N, E and S wall. All are partially or completely broken out, though the upper portion of a round-headed loop survives in the N and S wall and all the internal embrasures survive. There is a wall cupboard at either end of the N wall. The first-chamber, entered from the spiral stair, was lit by three windows, in the N, E and S wall, the N and E windows have been broken out and modern windows inserted, however, again all the embrasures are original. The S window is an ogee-headed single light, now blocked up. A small mural chamber at the N end of the E wall is not original. A doorway was inserted at the S end of the W wall giving access to a chamber which is above the entrance lobbies. This chamber was originally entered from the spiral stair and was lit by a window in the W wall, an angle loop and a window in the S wall, the latter was broken out when a doorway to the adjoining house was inserted. The original wooden floor of this chamber probably contained at least one murder-hole. The second-floor chamber was entered from the spiral stair and was lit by two windows, in the N and E wall, the windows are broken out and replaced with modern windows. There is a wall cupboard in the W side wall of the N window embrasure and one at the E end of the main N wall and at the W end of the S wall. A small garderobe chamber is accessed from the N wall of the E embrasure, it has no window but there is a small niche in the E wall, presumably for a candle. There is a small mural chamber entered from the S wall of the E embrasure. It has quite a large rectangular recess in the W wall and is lit by an angle loop. The main chamber has a flat-lintelled, joggle-jointed fireplace in the S wall. A flat-headed doorway in the W wall gives access to a chamber which is lit by two single-light ogee-headed windows, one in the S and one in the W wall. The third floor is covered by a slightly pointed barrel vault. This chamber was accessed via a doorway cut into the vault at the W end of a garderobe chamber in the N wall which utilises the haunch of the vault. There is currently a wooden gallery at the E end of the third-floor chamber overlooking the second floor. Formerly this level had a wooden floor which was carried on wooden floor plates supported on corbels on the N and S wall. This floor was lit by a flat-headed single-light window in the E wall. The L-plan garderobe chamber in the N wall is entered from the spiral stair and was lit by two flat-headed loops in the N wall and an NE angle loop. The garderobe chute is at the E end, where the chamber turns southward. Between the third and fourth floor there is a large mural chamber (4.9m N-S; 1.93m E-W; H 2.3m) in the W wall entered from the spiral stair via a flat-headed doorway which is unusually low and has a high threshold. The present tower house owner suggested that this may have b