Castle - tower house, Killiney, Co. Kerry
At the base of the Magharees peninsula in County Kerry, the village of Killiney harbours the remains of what may have been an Early Christian foundation.
Castle - tower house, Killiney, Co. Kerry
The site’s large rectangular graveyard likely encompasses the original religious settlement, though today the most prominent feature is a medieval tower that stands in varying states of preservation. This ivy-clad rectangular structure, now suffering from significant structural issues, shows two surviving storeys with the upper level’s western and southern walls bulging outward rather alarmingly, whilst much of the eastern wall has already collapsed.
The tower’s ground floor, transformed into a family burial vault during the 19th century, remains sealed off from casual exploration. Its original entrance may have been through the eastern wall, later modified to accommodate burials, with light once filtering through a narrow ogee-headed window on the south side, though this opening is now blocked and partially collapsed. The first floor was accessed through a doorway in the north wall, likely reached by wooden stairs or a ladder from the church’s eastern end. This entrance featured a rebated door frame that could be barred from within, a common defensive feature of medieval Irish towers. The upper chamber, now largely ruinous, contained what appears to have been a fireplace in the western wall and was illuminated by narrow windows, including one in the south wall that has since tumbled into the graveyard below.
A spiral staircase in the tower’s northeast corner provided access to either a third storey or, more likely, a wall walk along the roof. From here, one could reach a small garderobe chamber built against the church’s south wall, though only about 40 centimetres of its walls remain above the flagged floor, with its northern entrance having long since fallen away. This practical addition, probably topped with a simple cap roof, serves as a reminder of the domestic functions these religious complexes often incorporated, blending the sacred with the everyday needs of their medieval inhabitants.