Site of Castle, Castleterry, Co. Cork
In the townland of Castleterry, County Cork, there's a hillside that once held a castle, though you'd be hard pressed to spot any evidence of it today.
Site of Castle, Castleterry, Co. Cork
The site sits on a south-facing slope near a stream, amongst what’s now waste ground, with no visible stonework or earthworks remaining to mark where the fortification once stood. It’s one of those places where the landscape has completely reclaimed what was built, leaving only historical records to confirm that anything was ever there at all.
The area appears on the Down Survey maps from 1655-6, which show a house standing in this vicinity on the barony map. The Down Survey, commissioned by Oliver Cromwell to redistribute Irish lands to his soldiers and adventurers, provides some of the earliest detailed mapping of Ireland, making it a valuable resource for tracking lost sites like this one. The presence of a house rather than a castle on these mid-17th century maps suggests the original fortification may have already been abandoned or demolished by that time.
Without archaeological excavation, it’s difficult to determine exactly when the castle was built or who occupied it. The placename itself, Castleterry, preserves the memory of the fortification in the landscape, even though the physical structure has long since vanished. This is fairly typical of many Irish castle sites; centuries of stone robbing for local building projects, natural decay, and agricultural activity have erased many medieval fortifications, leaving only subtle traces in field boundaries, placenames, and historical documents.