Bawn, Currycahill, Co. Longford

Bawn, Currycahill, Co. Longford

In the townland of Currycahill in County Longford, the ghost of a 17th-century bawn haunts the landscape through field boundaries and fragments of old walls.

Bawn, Currycahill, Co. Longford

This defensive enclosure once surrounded a fortified house, appearing as a square structure on the Down Survey map of Clonbroney parish drawn between 1655 and 1656. The Down Survey, commissioned by Oliver Cromwell to redistribute Irish lands after his conquest, provides one of the few visual records of this long-vanished stronghold.

Though no obvious traces of the bawn remain above ground today, its outline may still be traced in the modern landscape. The 1837 Ordnance Survey map shows a rectangular field measuring roughly 40 metres from west-northwest to east-southeast and 30 metres from north-northeast to south-southwest, which likely preserves the original footprint of the fortification. The northern and eastern sides of this field, which form part of the townland boundary, are still visible today, along with a short section of walling on the northern side that possibly follows the line of the original bawn wall.

These bawns were essential features of plantation-era Ireland, providing defended courtyards where settlers could protect their livestock and gather for mutual defence during times of unrest. The fortified house and bawn at Currycahill would have been part of the network of defensive structures built across the Irish midlands during the turbulent 16th and 17th centuries, when English and Scottish planters sought to establish themselves in a frequently hostile landscape. Today, only subtle clues in the field patterns hint at this forgotten fortress that once stood guard over the Longford countryside.

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NLI, MS 719 – National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey of Co. Longford attested by W. Petty under date 1657. Copied by Daniel O’Brien. A set of 22 maps with accompanying terriers, 1786-7. Dublin.
Currycahill, Co. Longford
53.77497455, -7.6641986
53.77497455,-7.6641986
Currycahill 
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