Site of Brittas Castle — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

In 1640 Henry Archer owned a ruined stone house in Cappagh, perhaps the lost Brittas Castle mentioned by Carrigan in 1905. The Dobbins held both local castles until Cromwellian confiscations in 1653 erased their names from the land. A square platform still rises half a metre above wet ground, bordered by faint fosse traces, while a modern road cuts across its southern edge.

The Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of 'Inishteage' in the barony of Gowran, is accompanied by a terrier (NLI MS720). This terrier mentions that, 'There is in Cappagh a Stone House Ruined' and lists Henry Archer as the proprietor in 1640 (ibid.). It is possible that the building called, 'Brittas Castle' on the 6-inch OS maps, may be the house mentioned in the Down Survey. Described by Carrigan (1905, vol. 4, 116), as, ‘In Brittawce, a subdivision of Kilkieran was another castle now also destroyed. Its site is still pointed out in the “castle field” of Brittawce, to the south-west of Kilkieran churchyard. Both these castles belonged to the Dobbins till the Cromwellian confiscations in 1653’. The location of the castle is visible as a roughly square platform (max. dims. 28m square, H 0.5m) with low-lying wet ground to N, E and W. There are traces of an infilled fosse (Wth 3m) on the N, E and W sides. A modern road immediately to the S may truncate it. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 9 March 2022

Henry Archer is recorded in 1655–56 as holding land in the area of what was once Brittas Castle at Carrigeen, Gowran. The site is remembered through historical land surveys and as an example of early modern landownership in post-Cromwellian Ireland.

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