Castle Creevy, Castlecreevy, Co. Galway
Perched on a rocky outcrop west of a small cluster of houses, the ruins of Castle Creevy command sweeping views across the boglands of North Galway.
Castle Creevy, Castlecreevy, Co. Galway
Known locally as Craobh Castle, this fortification was recorded by the antiquarian William Wilde in 1872, who noted it belonged to one Croabh Ni Burca. Historical records suggest this might be the same castle listed as ‘Yowghvle’ in 1574, when it was held by John Lynch fitz William, though the connection remains tentative.
Today, visitors will find the fragmentary remains of a rectangular bawn, its walls now completely shrouded in ivy. The enclosure measures approximately 40 metres east to west and 32 metres north to south, with the southern and western walls standing as the best preserved sections; both are three metres thick and reach heights of four metres. The eastern wall has been partially incorporated into what was once a ball alley, whilst the northern wall has almost entirely vanished. The defences included at least three circular turrets, with one six-metre-diameter tower still visible on the southern wall, though the relationship between the remaining towers to the northeast and southeast and the surviving walls suggests the castle may have undergone several phases of construction.
Within the bawn’s interior, archaeological evidence points to various structures that once stood here. A later rectangular building, measuring 7.5 by 6 metres, adjoins the northern side of the southern tower. Near the old ball alley in the eastern section, traces of another rectangular building can be made out, its long axis running north to south. This may be the remains of the ‘square tower in tolerably good preservation’ mentioned in the Ordnance Survey Letters of the 1830s, though time and weather have long since reduced it to little more than foundations and memories.