Houseland Castle, Houseland, Co. Wexford
On a gentle south-facing slope in County Wexford, the scant remains of Houseland Castle tell a story spanning nearly six centuries of Irish history.
Houseland Castle, Houseland, Co. Wexford
The site, first recorded in 1471 when Andrew FitzRedmond held a house and 80 acres here, was originally known as Northtown, marking the northernmost townland in Hook parish. The parish itself formed part of the Knights Templar manor of Kilcloggan, passing to the Knights Hospitaller after the Templars’ dissolution in 1312.
By the time of the Suppression of the Monasteries in 1541, the castle and 30 acres belonged to Henry Keating, though ownership would shift again by 1640 when the property came into the hands of Nicholas Loftus. Historical records describe the castle as a four-storey tower featuring a vaulted ground floor and a spiral newel staircase; typical defensive architecture of medieval Ireland that would have served both as a residence and stronghold for the local landowner.
Today, visitors to the site will find only the foundation course of what was once a rectangular structure measuring roughly 6 metres east to west and 5.8 metres north to south. The northern wall contains what appears to be either an entrance or possibly the outlet of a garderobe chute, whilst nearby sits a rubble cairn approximately 15 metres in diameter and up to 1.6 metres high. Though these remnants may seem modest, they represent centuries of continuous occupation and the changing fortunes of medieval and early modern Ireland, from the military orders through to the Tudor conquest and beyond.