St Josephs Asylum for the Blind

Drumcondra Castle was built in the 16th-century on the present site of St. Joseph's Asylum for the Blind by John Bathe, a Meath family, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer (Bowen 1963, 68). This is recorded in a tablet preserved in St. Joseph's Asylum and dated to 1561. It is located on an internal wall on the N side of the present building (Ball 1920, 159-165; 167-168). Part of the walls of the 16th century castle are at ground floor level. The original building was orientated north-south and was rectangular in plan , although it may have had a turret on the SW corner. It is intact at semi-basement /ground level, where it currently forms part of the kitchen and cane be identified by the thickness of the wall, which are almost 1.20m in width. The original vaulting survives , as does the rectangular fireplace in the S wall. After John Bathe's death in 1586 the castle became the residence of Sir William Warren, after he married Elenor preston, John Bathe's widow. The castle is marked on the Down Survey map as a large castle/house with two smaller gabled houses standing beside it. Drumcondra Castle is also mentioned in the Civil survey (1654-6) the proprietor being James Bath (Simington 1945, 180). In 1703, Drumcondra Castle was purchased by Captain Chichester Phillips, and at the time the estate was listed as a castle with a brick dwelling house, stables, a coach house, malt house, one brick house and five cabbins. Test excavations NW of the castle in 2009 revealed a series of pits and ditches that were thought to be related to the castle (09E437). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout Upload date: 19 November 2012

St Joseph's Asylum for the Blind was built on the site of Drumcondra Castle, which was originally constructed in the 16th century by John Bathe of a Meath family. The site is historically significant due to its early association with the Bathe family and its later use as an institution for the blind, reflecting social and architectural changes over centuries.