What is recorded here

Lyonstown Castle vanished completely before 1840, though old men still remembered nearly perfect walls. That sudden erasure turns the farmyard into a place where memory outlived stone. Richard Stapleton lost half a castle in the 1650s survey, and the rest may have been taken by time, people or forgetting. The yard still exists, but its deepest shape is absence.

In stable yard of Lyonstown farm which has a tar and grass surface and is enclosed by buildings. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'a Castle halfe' with the proprietor in 1640 listed as 'Richard Stapleton of Lainstowne Irish Papist' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 221). The OS Letters (1840) mention that of the castle at Lyonstown 'no parts of their walls are visible at present though they were all nearly perfect in the memory of old men still living' (O'Flanagan 1930, vol.1, 118). Not visible at ground level. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011

Lyonstown Castle was held by Richard Stapleton in 1640 and was described in the 1654–56 Civil Survey as 'a Castle halfe', indicating partial ruin by that time. It is remembered as a surviving reference to early 17th-century landholding in the area.

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