Add your own picture and explain the route, parking, gates, paths or landmarks that help people find it.
Earn 5 points after the picture is checked and accepted.
Add your photo and local directionsShare what you foundWhat is recorded here
Situated on a bluff overlooking the N-S Blackwater River, which is immediately to the W. This is a Fitzgerald castle which 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 were demolished in the 17th century, apart from the base of a large circular tower (min. diam. 12m; surviving H c. 6m) with a base-batter perched over the river, that is probably the corner tower of a bawn, and a coeval wall (L c. 8m; H c. 6m) extending N to the base of a tower house. The 18th- and 19th-century ranges are now demolished. (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 of Ireland. The Irish Architectural Archive. Dublin.
Compiled by: Michael Moore
Date of upload: 26 July 2011
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.