Castle, Castletown, Co. Galway
On a hillock in the rolling pastures of Castletown, County Galway, a curious earthwork marks what local tradition claims to be the site of a lost castle.
Castle, Castletown, Co. Galway
The steep-sided rectangular mound, measuring roughly 26.5 metres long and 21.7 metres wide, rises from the northern shoulder of the hill overlooking a stream about 50 metres away. Though the Ordnance Survey Letters from 1927 recorded local stories about a castle in this townland, the site never made it onto official maps, and no one bothered to investigate further at the time.
The mound itself appears to have been created by carving away the natural hillside to form its distinctive shape, standing six metres tall on its northern side before sloping down to two metres at the south. Its flat summit contains an intriguing feature; an almost square depression, seven by six metres, surrounded by what remains of a rubble bank now covered in grass. The bank, about two metres wide and a metre high, forms a rough boundary around this central hollow, though no mortar, cut stone, or architectural fragments have been found to confirm the castle story.
Whether this was truly a castle site or perhaps an earlier fortification remains a mystery. The surrounding landscape still bears traces of an old field system, suggesting the area has been occupied and worked for centuries. Without excavation, we can only speculate about what once stood here, but the mound’s commanding position and deliberate construction certainly suggest it held some importance to those who shaped it from the hillside.