What is recorded here

Witches Castle stands in Galway pasture as a two-storey rectangular keep from the 13th century, still holding enough wall to show where floors, rooms and a projecting latrine once sat. Its name suggests fear, but the stones record ordinary life: a drawbar socket for a door, small aumbries for food or tools, and narrow slits for light. If it was still occupied in 1574, then people lived beside its ruins long after grand castles fell out of fashion.

In well-drained undulating pastureland. It consists of a small 13th-C castle in fair condition. What survives is N gable wall and substantial sections of the adjoining E and W walls of a two-storey rectangular keep (L >8.7m, Wth 7.6m). No trace of the original doorway survives. However, the presence of a horizontal socket (for a drawbar) at the frayed S end of E wall may indicate the position of a doorway on the ground floor. The presence of horizontal offsets halfway up E and W walls indicate the former position of the wooden floor between ground/1st floors. A doorway on 1st floor at extreme N end of W wall led to a projecting latrine, the ragged stonework of which is visible externally. The surviving windows consist of simple rectangular slits; that in N wall on 1st floor is set in a small embrasure. There are two small aumbries in E and W walls on ground floor. Evidently still in use in 1574 when it was in the possession of 'Murrogh McSwyne' (Nolan 1901b, 119). A church (GA071-076001-) lies 755m to NNW. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

Witches Castle in Kilskeagh is a 13th-century stone keep, likely built by a local Anglo-Norman lord or Gaelic noble during the period of medieval expansion in Ulster. The site is remembered for its historical significance as a defensive structure in a contested frontier region and for the local legend associated with its name.

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