Castle - tower house, Castleconway, Co. Kerry

Castle – tower house, Castleconway, Co. Kerry

On the north side of Lower Bridge Street in Killorglin stands what remains of Castleconway, a tower house with a history stretching back to the early 13th century.

Castle - tower house, Castleconway, Co. Kerry

The site first held a castle built by Maurice Fitzgerald in 1215, which endured a turbulent existence; burned by the MacCarthys in 1261 following the Geraldine defeat at Callan, rebuilt, then burned and razed again in 1280. Local tradition suggests the Knights Templar later occupied the site, though historians consider this unlikely. The ruins visible today belong to a later tower house that came into the possession of Captain Jenkin Conway in 1583, after the MacCarthys forfeited it. Conway fortified the structure and added a bawn wall, but Florence MacCarthy More torched it in 1600. Despite being described as ruined in 1682, the castle was repaired and remained with the Conway-Blennerhassett family until 1795, with residents living there as late as the 1840s.

The surviving structure occupies a strategic position overlooking the River Laune, though only its south wall, east and west returns, and a southwest corner turret remain standing. Built from rubble set in lime pebble mortar, the 14.4-metre south wall features a weathered base batter that rises to 3.1 metres. The building originally stood at least two storeys tall, as evidenced by the internal features and stairway. At ground level, two loops with splayed openings and a doorway survive, though the loops are now blocked by roughly two metres of accumulated material. The doorway, of which only the lintel remains visible, led through a short vaulted passage to the turret stairway.

The circular stairway within the turret spirals clockwise, lit by a small splayed loop, and provides access between floors via finely dressed red sandstone newel stairs. The first floor, reached through a tall lintelled doorway (now blocked), was supported by timber beams whose sockets remain visible in the south wall. This level contains two blocked window embrasures; a tall, round-headed central window and a smaller one to its west, with traces of plaster still clinging to the walls. Above the first floor, a small garderobe chamber measuring 2.1 by 1.2 metres sits within the turret’s east side, complete with the remains of its discharge chute below. Though the stair continues to a second floor, no features survive at that height. Today, nineteenth-century buildings adjoin the ruins on three sides, whilst the interior serves as a garden.

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Castleconway, Co. Kerry
52.10642462, -9.78525575
52.10642462,-9.78525575
Castleconway 
Tower Houses 

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