Site of Castle, Walterstown, Co. Kildare
On the western slope of Pigeon House Hill in Walterstown, County Kildare, the remnants of a medieval castle tell a fragmentary story of Norman Ireland.
Site of Castle, Walterstown, Co. Kildare
The site overlooks a small stream flowing westward about 35 metres to the south, positioned amongst a cluster of other historical ruins that hint at the area’s former significance. Within walking distance lie the remains of what may have been a nunnery and its associated graveyard roughly 120 metres to the west-northwest, whilst a church and another graveyard can be found about 125 metres to the south-southwest.
According to the first edition Ordnance Survey map from 1838, this was one of two castles in the immediate vicinity; the second stood approximately 180 metres to the east-southeast. When antiquarian O’Conor visited in 1837 to document the site for the Ordnance Survey, he noted that only a small buttment of the castle remained visible, adding that local tradition held the Fitzgerald family as the original owners. This aligns with the broader pattern of Norman settlement in County Kildare, where powerful families like the Fitzgeralds established fortified residences to control strategic territories.
Today, visitors to the site will find only modest traces of what once stood here: a small section of mortared masonry, measuring just 1.5 metres north to south and 1.1 metres east to west, with heights varying from 30 centimetres to 1.5 metres. Some of the inner and outer facing stones remain in their original position, whilst a larger chunk of displaced masonry, roughly 2 metres by 1.3 metres and standing 1.6 metres high, has tumbled to the south. These humble remnants serve as quiet testimony to centuries of Irish history, from medieval power struggles to the gradual abandonment and decay of once-important strongholds.