Carrigaholt Castle: A Medieval Tower House in Ireland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Ireland
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Irish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page6 sections
History
Carrigaholt Castle is a medieval tower house in Ireland, built around 1480 by the McMahons, a Gaelic Irish ruling family of the Corca Bhaiscinn Peninsula. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the McMahons controlled the castle and remained politically independent of English authority and the smaller Irish kingdoms.
McMahon rule and the Spanish Armada
In September 1588, Tadhg Caech Mac Mathghamhna, a Gaelic Irish leader whose name means “the Short-Sighted,” lived at Carrigaholt Castle. Seven ships of the Spanish Armada anchored at Carrigaholt, after which the forces of Sir Conyers Clifford, governor of Connaught, besieged the castle. The defenders received no assistance from other McMahons but successfully resisted the attack.
The 1589 siege and O’Brien ownership
In 1589, the 4th Earl of Thomond captured Carrigaholt after a four-day siege. He had promised the defenders their lives and freedom if they surrendered, but broke the agreement and ordered all of them to be executed. Ownership then passed to his brother, Donal O’Brien, who enlarged the castle by adding windows and fireplaces.
Donal O’Brien’s grandson, the 3rd Viscount Clare, later resided at Carrigaholt. He raised a cavalry regiment called the Yellow Dragons for the army of James II.
Confiscation and later care
After the Williamite victory, the castle and the associated O’Brien lands were confiscated for the English Crown because of the family’s support for the Jacobites. The Williamites supported William III, while the Jacobites supported the deposed Catholic king James II during the late-seventeenth-century conflicts between them.
The Burton family subsequently acquired Carrigaholt Castle and retained it until the end of the nineteenth century. Burton family members were the castle’s last residents before leaving it. The Irish state now owns the castle, which is cared for by the Office of Public Works, the body responsible for managing and conserving many historic monuments in Ireland. Carrigaholt Castle is recognized as a National Monument of Ireland.
Remains
The tower house
Carrigaholt Castle is a five-storey tower house, a compact fortified residence with domestic rooms arranged through a tall stone tower. Built of rubble stone, it stands at the end of a fishing pier overlooking the Shannon estuary, beside a strategically situated bay and fishing harbour. The surviving building is a ruin, but it retains evidence of later changes, including several windows inserted during Donal O’Brien’s ownership. An open fireplace on the fifth floor bears the carved date 1603.
