What is recorded here

Flint and fire erased Clonoghil Castle in 1642, leaving behind a square shadow of rubble inside an older earthwork. The stone tower measured barely eleven metres across, yet it commanded the low rise and forced every visitor to approach through its narrow grip. Men may have lived beneath that roof, listening for the clash of weapons or the cry of a child, before the flame took the building and the memory together. What remains is a broken box of limestone, waiting for someone to imagine the life it swallowed.

Situated in the NE sector of the interior of a possible ringfort (OF035-014004-) on a low natural rise in undulating countryside. Poorly preserved remains of a tower house (11.3m N-S; 11.3m E-W; wall T 2m) built of roughly coursed limestone rubble. No architectural features visible due to poor preservation of site. The tower house appears to have utilised the ringfort interior as a possible bailey area. Burned in the year 1642 by the Irish (Cooke 1875, 42-3). The enclosing earthwork may be an earlier ringfort or could be contemporary with the stone castle where it acted as a defensive enclosure supporting a timber palisade acting as a bawn wall. In 2006, David Sweetman under licence No. 06E0251 undertook pre-development assessment by test-trenching and soil-stripping near Clonoghil Castle, Birr, produced nothing of interest (Bennett 2009, 449). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by Caimin O'Brien Date of upload/revision: 30 December 2011

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