Castle — Clonea Lower

Situated on rock outcrop at the edge of the shore on Clonea strand. Marked as an ancient castle on the the 1840 ed. of the OS 6-inch map, but it is not an antiquity. It was built by the Maguire family, probably in the late 18th or early 19th century, although it was said by J. O'Donovan c. 1840 to be on the site of a Fitzgerald castle (O'Flanagan, 1929, 39). Photographs taken c. 1940, and now in the Waterford County Museum in Dungarvan, show a rectangular tower of three storeys with some large windows and small lights. It was entered by a plain doorway at the N end of the SW side and had small stepped or plain crenalations. The tower fell in a storm in the winter of 1989-90, but the base of the NE and SE walls (T 0.9m; H c. 4m) survive. O'Flanagan, M. (Compiler) (1929) Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Waterford collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1841. Typescript. Bray. Compiled by: Michael Moore. Date of upload: 25th August, 2011.