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Situated on a bluff overlooking the N-S Blackwater River, which is immediately to the W. A Fitzgerald castle was the caput of the manor of the Lords of Decies, descended from Gerald Mór, son of James, the seventh Earl of Desmond. It was probably built by Gerald Mór in the late 15th century. It escaped the Desmond forfeitures and the Cromwellian confiscations of the 17th century (Power 1908b, 6-7) to become through marriage the seat of the Villier-Stuart family in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The medieval buildings (WA029-021001-) were demolished in the 17th century, apart from the base of a large circular tower perched over the river and a coeval wall (L c. 8m; H c. 6m) extending N to the base of a tower house. A window from the tower house is built into a late 17th-century house of eight bays and two storeys extending N on an L-shaped plan which was illustrated by Daniel Grose c. 1820 (Stalley 1991, 58-60). The roof is steeply pitched and the fenestration is original. An armorial crest in relief with the inscribed date 1745 is built into a gable. Later 18th- and 19th-century ranges are now demolished, and the house is still occupied. (Ryland 1824, 315-17)
Power, Rev. P. (1908b) Dromore to Lismore - with notes on the antiquiteis to be visited on the society's annual excurstion, WAJ 12, 1-16.
Ryland, Rev. R. H. (1824) The History, topography and antiquities of the county and city of Waterford. John Murray. London.
Stalley, R. (1991) Daniel Grosse (c. 1776-1838): the antiquities pf Ireland. The Irish Architectural Archive. Dublin.
Compiled by: Michael Moore
Date of upload: 26 July 2011
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