Bawn, Castletown, Co. Laois
In the countryside near Castletown, County Laois, a solitary gable wall rises from the landscape, the last remnant of what was once known as Cody's Castle.
Bawn, Castletown, Co. Laois
This tower house, formally catalogued as LA028-042, stood in remarkably good condition as recently as 1800, but the intervening centuries have not been kind to this medieval stronghold. Today, only the southeast gable survives, standing some 30 to 40 feet high with walls that measure an impressive eleven feet thick at ground level; a testament to the substantial construction methods employed by its original builders.
The castle once commanded a raised defensive position within a bawn, a fortified enclosure typical of Irish tower houses. Though the protective wall that formed this bawn has largely crumbled away, keen observers can still trace its foundations to the west of the surviving gable, designated as LA028-0420010 in archaeological records. William Carrigan, writing in his comprehensive history of Ossory in 1905, noted that even by his time, most of the structure had already been destroyed, lamenting the loss of what had been an almost perfectly preserved castle just a century earlier.
The site represents a common story across the Irish landscape, where once formidable defensive structures have gradually surrendered to time, weather, and human activity. The substantial thickness of the remaining walls hints at the castle’s former strength and importance, whilst the elevated position and evidence of the surrounding bawn suggest this was more than just a simple defensive tower; it was likely the centre of a small but significant local power base during Ireland’s turbulent medieval period.





