What is recorded here

Arkin Castle rose at Cill Éinne around 1652 when Cromwellian forces built a bastioned fort on the rocky foreshore. Its seaward towers and landward rooms formed a rectangular trap for ships and invaders alike. One cannon loop still holds a cross-slab taken from the nearby monastery, turning sacred stone into a weapon’s edge. The sea has since erased most towers, leaving only a long wall and a water-gate to remember the violence buried beneath the tide.

On the seashore at Cill Éinne, on the site of an earlier castle (GA119-005003-). This National Monument, known locally as Caisleán Aircín, was built c. 1652-5 by Cromwellian forces. A manuscript plan of 1796-8 (Dublin Oireachtas Libr. MS 8.H.21; pers. comm. P. Kerrigan) shows it as roughly rectangular in plan with two square towers to seaward and two irregularly placed circular towers to landward. Both of the latter and one of the former are now gone. What remains today is a substantial portion of N wall (L c. 63m, H 5m) built on the rocky foreshore. There is a small tower at SE end and a water-gate surmounted by a machicolation further to N. One of the gun and cannon loops incorporates a cross-slab (GA119-005002-) reused as a lintel, giving credence to the tradition that the fort was built of stones from the old monastery (GA119-006006-) nearby. (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 3, 399-400; Robinson 1986, 239-58; Kerrigan 1980, 135; Walsh 1994, 149-58) The monument was taken into Ownership under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 - National Monument 43. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). Date of upload: 05 August 2010 GA119-005001-_Arkin Castle_002 GA119-005001-_Arkin Castle_003 GA119-005001-_Arkin Castle_006

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