Castle, Toberavaddy, Co. Roscommon
In 1641, Edward Ormsby held 200 acres at Tobervaddy and Moigh (Muff), later expanding his estate by 120 acres at Corderryhugh through the Cromwellian settlement, alongside shares in other lands.
Castle, Toberavaddy, Co. Roscommon
His fortified house at Tobervaddy sits on the southwest facing slope of a ridge, roughly 150 metres from the River Suck. Today, this once grand L-shaped structure exists mainly as foundations and fragments, with the two wings meeting at a southern angle. The northeast wing, which originally measured about 26.5 metres by 7.5 metres internally, now consists primarily of a two-storey gable wall with an attic level and the remains of robbed fireplaces. Outside this gable, a barrel-vaulted cellar survives, stretching 10.5 metres with a southeastern entrance.
The northwest wing fares little better, with only a fragment of its gable wall featuring a defensive gun-loop still standing. Where the two wings converge at the southern angle, a circular tower rises with four gun-loops and a ground floor window, a reminder of the building’s defensive purpose. The house appears to occupy the southern corner of what was likely a bawn, a fortified courtyard measuring approximately 55 by 30 metres, now visible only as grass-covered wall footings. A stone-lined roadway, about 6.7 metres wide, extends 66 metres east-southeast from the eastern angle of this defensive enclosure.
The surrounding landscape reveals additional structures that formed part of this historic estate. About 30 metres north of the main house stand the foundations of a rectangular building, roughly 6.4 by 6.1 metres internally, with masonry walls nearly a metre thick and an entrance on its southeast side. A walled garden lies northwest of the house, whilst on the flood plain approximately 100 metres to the southwest, a rectangular enclosure defined by a shallow, silted fosse or drain marks another element of this complex. The entire site has been under a preservation order since 1990, protecting these evocative ruins that speak to centuries of Irish landed history along the banks of the River Suck.