Castles of Ivaha

Fort of Gold 2: The Castle

This post will be about the castle itself, as a follow-up to Part 1 about the promontory and historical background. I received some very interesting comments on the name, Dún an Óir, which I interpret as Fort of Gold, and I will write more about that at the end of this post. If you are not familiar with castle architecture, before you start, you might want to browse my castles page and pay attention to how they were built and what the castles of Ivaha generally looked like. Unless otherwise identified, all the photographs in this post were kindly sent to me by Tash, one of our readers. In this one, taken from the sea, the impregnable siting of the castle can be appreciated.

The castle was surrounded by a bawn wall, clearly visible still. Three floors (ground, first and second) were surmounted by a ‘partial vault’, above which was the principle chamber or solar – the private domain of the castle owner and his family but also where visitors were entertained.  Above that was a mezzanine floor and above that again was a wall walk, accessed via a spiral staircase from the main chamber. 

In her paper on this castle*, Sarah Kerr points out that it is, in fact, unlike the other O’Driscoll Castles of Dún na Séad and Dún na Long, and indeed other West Cork Castles, in that it only had one entry, at the ground-floor level. It is possible, she says, that the tower was so well defended naturally by its position, that a raised entry (an additional line of defence) was unnecessary. She also points out that a raised entry functioned as a status symbol, since it was the entry used by the chief to access the private rather than the public spaces within the tower. Perhaps Dún an Óir was therefore a lower-status castle, occupied by a garrison rather than by a chieftain. She provides this plan

Another unusual feature is the small projecting tower that contained the garderobes. You can see that projecting addition in the plan, above, and in the photograph, below. The entry led up, via a mural staircase to a door giving admittance to the first floor, and carrying on to entries at the second and third floor levels. From there, another stairs led up to the wall walk.

Flat slabs were used to dress the outside of the walls, the same construction method as at Dunlough, although not as finely built. 

Instead of a complete vault, such as we see at Dunmanus or Rincolisky, there is a ‘partial vault’, described by Samuel:

Two free arches resembling ‘slices’ of a barrel vault were built. The gaps between the arches and the walls created were lintelled over with large overlapping slabs. This ‘economy’ vaulting was much lighter than a complete vault. 

The Tower Houses of West Cork by Mark Samuel

In fact, this type of internal vaulting is not that unusual in West Cork – we saw it at Dunlough and in the small tower at Dunworley. At Dunlough, we can still see many of the large slabs of slate that once bridged the gaps between the arches of the partial vaulting, while at Dunworley the roof is still intact. In Tash’s photograph below you can see the double arches and the full extent of the three floors below them, as well as the chamber above which would have had a pitched wooden roof..

The top room, or chamber, was very high with a pitched roof supported at each end with an archway. The archway also allowed the top of the wall to be kept clear to form a wall walk. A conjectural reconstruction drawing at Ballinacarriga conveys the idea, although Dún an Óir only had one arch, not two.

The battlements have disappeared – they were likely Irish crenellations consisting of stepped merlins and crenels (see here) – but the wall walk can still be discerned. As you can see below, the steps can still be climbed by those brave enough.

Quite a bit of the bawn wall survives, although of course it would have been much higher (possibly as described here). If the sheer cliffs were not enough to deter any thought of attack, the walls would have provided an additional barrier. Unfortunately, they were not able to withstand cannon fire, let alone the passage of hundreds of years. Sarah Kerr has an interesting take on this wall:

Bawns are often considered an additional defensive feature, or at least deterrent. Dún an Óir’s in this regard is somewhat excessive as anyone who could scale the rocky façade of the promontory would likely not be deterred by additional few metres of wall. The bawn, however, would have provided the inhabitants a layer of safety against accidental falls and protection from some of the inclement weather, such as high winds and storm waves from which Roaringwater Bay gets its name. These humdrum practicalities of the medieval lived experience have often been overlooked in castleology or castle-adjacent buildings archaeology, however, it is this very granularity which deepens our understanding of how these buildings worked.


Networked Control: Tower Houses in Ireland by Sarah Kerr

The bawn, in Samuel’s estimation, (that’s his plan above) was big enough to accommodate quite a large herd of cattle. An interesting feature is that of an outside kitchen with an oven, reminding me of what was uncovered at Rincolisky, another O’Driscoll castle, in recent excavations. In the plan above the oven is the circular feature at the north corner of the tower. Other buildings stood inside the bawn, although their purpose is not clear. There may have been a gatehouse, and the ‘possible wall embrasure’ in Kerr’s plan is viewed by Samuel as a corner turret. Samuel lays out what he can interpret of the various walls that surround the castle:

The continuous and well-preserved north wall of the bawn terminates to the west with a return that runs a short distance north before being broken away. This is the inner face, a turret with gunloops which defended the bawn. The curved outer wall enfiladed the mainland with three widely splayed gunloops.

The interpretation of the ruins east of the tower house is more difficult. Erosion has removed the eastermost part of the defences. Two separate walls on the east side of the tower diverge from its orientation; running approximately due east they seem to have formed the north and south walls of a smaller enclosure containing another building. At the west end, the north wall meets a wall (the junction is destroyed) with a gate which abuts the north face of the tower. The robbed jambs of a large gate survive on the east face of the wall and indicates that the gate swung inwards to the west where another enclosure presumably existed. A deep drawbeam is visible in the south jamb. This gate now leads almost directly into a deep ravine. A fair-weather landing stage may have once existed on this side of the island but it would have rarely have been safe to use.

. 
The Tower Houses of West Cork by Mark Samuel

Sarah Kerr positions Dún an Óir in a network of O’Driscoll castles that together worked to control the resources of Roaringwater Bay, to levy fishery dues, monitor trade, and defend territory when necessary. Within this network, the highest status tower, and probably centre of administration was Dún na Séad (Baltimore). The highly visible nature of all these castles, some on promontories and all visible from the sea, were ‘manifestations of authority, wealth and status.’ She posits that: 

Due to Dún an Óir’s lack of a slipway, natural harbour or rock-cut steps, it is unlikely that manging the fish produce was a primary role at this dwelling, particularly as Dún na Long and Dún na Séad were more suited to such tasks. Instead Dún an Óir probably managed the victualing and collection of fees from passing ships, indicating that the tower houses worked in unison. It appears that each tower house had a specific role which complemented one another, as such they were unique actors that performed as a network

Networked Control: Tower Houses in Ireland by Sarah Kerr

It’s surprising how much we can tell from the remains of this once prominent symbol of power. It will never be on a tourist trail and I would not advise anyone to try to access it – but as you can see, Tash and his group managed it.

In response to my first post I had several suggestions for alternate titles on Facebook. Ruamann Ua Ríagáin proposed an alternate interpretation as Dún an Ár, or Fort of the Slaughter. There are no indications that there was any tradition of cattle-slaughtering at this site, nor any record of a massacre. However, it remains a possible interpretation. Another reader, Tom Driscoll found another Dún an Óir which was assumed to come from Dún an Ochair, meaning Fort on the Brink/ Cliff Edge. Certainly apt for this location. Finally, note the long comment on Part 1 by OVERSEASGREATGRANNY who is trying to trace similarly named forts and relate them to Irish history – quite fascinating.

When the storms rage over Roaringwater Bay it is natural to wonder how long this castle can last, isolated on its spit of land and open to the full force of nature. But it is also a comfort to know that the castle builders built it so well that it has lasted now since it was built around 1450 and battered in 1601. Here’s to another few hundred years!

Thanks again for the superb photos, Tash!
Sarah Kerr of UCC has kindly shared with me her draft paper, Networked Control: Tower Houses in Ireland. I thank her sincerely for permission to quote from this unpublished paper.

The Castles of West Cork – a New Menu Page

I’ve been working on a post about one of our storied and stunning West Cork Castles. That post will come next week but, spoiler alert, it’s located on Cape Clear Island.

But as I wrote it struck me that we could do with a specific Menu Page all about castles because we have written so many posts about them and those posts are buried in various paces on our All Pages -Navigation. So here it is – our new Menu Page devoted to The Castles of West Cork. As with all out Navigation pages, you can access it by clicking on the three-bar icon in the banner photo at the top of the blog.

I’ve divided it into a few sections, starting with defining our terms – while archaeologists use the term ‘tower house’ to denoted the tall, rectangular stone towers built here mostly in the 15th and 16th centuries, we just call them castles. Thickly ringing the coastline, and slightly sparser inland, they were potent symbols of the power and wealth of the Irish families and their chieftains who held sway in West Cork – the McCarthys, O’Mahonys, O’Driscolls and O’Donovans.

There’s a special section devoted to the Castles built by the O’Mahonys in what used to be called Ivaha, but is now commonly known as the Mizen Peninsula. We’ve visited them all, and provide as much information as we can of both the history of each castle and how they were constructed.

We’ve also written about non-Ivaha castles: the magnificently reconstructed Kilcoe, the lovingly restored Rincolisky, and Castle Donovan, stabilised by the OPW.

Finally, two posts: one about what followed the tower houses (fortified manors like Coppinger’s Court below) and one about an Anglo-Norman masonry castle in Liscarrol – a jaw-dropping keepless Castle which nowadays houses cattle (final photo).

With well over 1000 posts stretching back ten years, we keep trying to simplify navigation on our site. We hope this new page helps.

The Castles of Ivaha: ‘Fragmentary Remains’

What can you say about a castle where only fragments remain of the original structure? Turns out – a surprising amount!

Fragmentary remains is the phrase used in the National Monuments record to describe the two castles which are the subject of this post – Dunbeacon and Castle Island. In each case only enough is still standing to confirm that it was indeed a medieval tower house. Fortunately, in the case of Dunbeacon, there is also historical evidence. 

Let’s look at Castle Island first, and begin with the name. Samuel, in his thesis on The Tower Houses of West Cork, tells us that it was known locally as Castleduff, or Caisleán Dubh, the Black Castle. However, this was the name more commonly applied to Black Castle/Leamcon, so he says there might be some confusion there. There is no other name in the historical records – no mention, indeed, at all. Perhaps it was too insignificant to merit a mention – a fortified outpost rather than the high-status residence of one of the ruling O’Mahonys. 

We have noted with other of the O’Mahony castles that they were built on the site of a ring fort (Ardintenant) or a promontory fort (Dunlough). The National Monuments records notes a promontory fort at this site, although it is not obvious on the ground any more. There are, in fact several promontory forts noted on Castle Island, perhaps indicating that this was the preferred type of fortified dwelling here, since there are no ringforts.

Like all the O’Mahony castles, it was strategically sited – it was beside the waters that separates the island from the mainland, and within sight of two other castles – Rossbrin and Ardintenant. The three form a triangle that overlooked and guarded the sheltered waters of Castle Island Channel. But also, from the top of the castle, there would have been a clear view south across the low land in the centre of the island, out to Roaringwater Bay.

We know that these waters would have been crowded with Spanish, French, Portuguese and British fishing boats, coming in to salt their catches in the fish palaces along the coast and to replenish their supplies. For all of these services and for permission to fish around Roaringwater Bay they paid hefty fees to the O’Mahonys, who got fabulously wealthy as a result. 

The castle was much smaller than all the others. Samuel says, 

Working on the assumption that Castleduff was an RE tower house [i.e Raised entry], its smallness is striking. The surviving ‘end wall’ makes possible a reasonably accurate estimate of the plan’s original length. It is assumed that like its neighbours, its plan had a length-to-breadth ratio of 3:4 to 4:5; the ratios suggest a length of 7.96-7.46m (measures above the base-batter). The surviving north wall probably represents the full length of the ground-floor chamber.

Mark Wycliffe Samuel
the tower houses of west cork

The only surviving opening is a loop in one wall, and a row of corbels that would have supported the first floor is still visible. There is no trace of anything that might suggest a vault, so it is possible that this small tower was unvaulted – Samuel thinks that the walls are noticeably thinner than the other castles, implying that this was a much simpler and shorter tower.

Samuels concludes his study of this tower by saying:

The jetty is modern, but the beach that it is laid upon was the best natural landing point on the island, well sheltered from the Atlantic swell. The landing clearly determined the siting of the tower house and was an important resource to the family that built the tower house. It is tempting to see a direct continuity between the recent settlement and a settlement around the tower house. Only excavation could determine if this was the case.

Mark Wycliffe Samuel
the tower houses of west cork

Dunbeacon (images below) is even more vestigial than Castle Island, but fortunately we do have some historical evidence for it. The name could mean Fort of Beacan – where Beacan is the name of a chieftain. However, it could also mean The Fort of the Mushrooms – since the Irish word for mushroom is beacán. I like to think of the chieftain and his lady chowing down on a plate of eggs and mushrooms for breakfast.

As with Castle Island, there are signs that the castle was built within a former promontory fort, also underscored with the name Dún, which means fortress. A fosse, or ditch, cut through the rock, is all that remains of the fortifications of that promontory fort.

The majority of the O’Mahony tower houses in Ivagha were built by or for the sons of Conchobar Cabach. Dunbeacon castle was allegedly built by his brother Dohmnall. This seems to be a traditional rather than documented attribution. If it is assumed that Dohmnall was born c. 1400, he may have built the tower house at any date during his adult life (c.1420 to c.1470).

Mark Wycliffe Samuel
the tower houses of west cork

The siting is magnificent. From it, there is a clear view of the whole of Dunmanus Bay, right to the end of the Ivaha (Mizen) and Sheep’s Head Peninsulas. This, of course, also meant that it bore the responsibility, along with Dunmanus, of defending O’Mahony territory from attack or incursion on the north side of Ivaha. The pro-English Owen O’Sullivan of Beara, for example, is known to have conducted cattle raids on the lands surrounding Dunbeacon.

Samuel tells us that the chief of Dunbeacon, Domhnall O’Mahony, forfeited his lands as a result of his participation in the Desmond Rebellion, and it became a ruin – beautifully captured in Brian Lalor’s sketch, above.

The tower house and four ploughlands were confiscated, and passed into the possession of an English settler who probably built a timber house to the east. The O’Mahonys did not attempt to reconquer the lost part of their pobol; instead they contented themselves with attacking and burning the tower house, an event recorded in a letter written by an English judge in 1588. The tower house probably remained a ruin.

Mark Wycliffe Samuel
the tower houses of west cork

The O’Mahonys regained possession of their Dunbeacon lands but lost them again when they were granted to an English settler. See my post Planning a Plantation: Jobson’s 1589 Map of Munster Part 1 and Part 2 for how the land was mapped preparatory to the Plantation of Munster. As you can see above, Dunbeacon (or Donbeken) was clearly marked out for colonisation. William Hull came to own it at one point, and even the conniving ‘lawyer’ Walter Coppinger laid claim to it – as he did with much of the O’Mahony and O’Driscoll territory.

Although so little remains, Samuel’s careful analysis indicates that Dunbeacon was probably a typical raised entry tower house, with a vault supporting the third floor which held the principle private chamber. See my posts on Ardintenant  and Black Castle for what it may have looked like.

It’s hard to look at ‘fragmentary remains’ and think of them as vibrant centres of life. Yet, these two castles were once part of the mighty O’Mahony federation – a large network of connected families that ruled Ivaha and the surrounding seas. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. 

Black Castle, or Leamcon

This is the fourth castle in my series The Castles of Ivaha, and the final one which is intact enough to be able to describe in detail (although I may have more to say about those which are more vestigial). Not just intact, though – Black Castle has been superbly stabilised and saved for future generations by its owner, Niall Hyde. 

Niall, by the way, thinks the the term Black Castle is more historically accurate. He points out that there is, in fact, in the townland of Leamcon, about 2km to the northeast, another ‘turret’ marked on the old OS maps, which is the remains of a castle built by the notorious Sir William Hull. Black Castle is in the townland of Castlepoint, and its name neatly distinguishes it from White Castle, AKA Ardintenant. Both were built by the O’Mahonys.

James Healy’s drawing of Black Castle from his wonderful book The Castles of County Cork, Mercier Press, 1988

As I said in my post on Ardintenant Conor Cabaicc succeeded his father in 1427 and remained Taoiseach for 46 years, embarking on an ambitious program of construction to provide castles for his sons and brothers. This included Black Castle, which he built for his second son, Finín Caol (pronounced Fineen Kale), or Finín the Slender. This means that Black Castle was built in the period before Conor Cabaicc (Conor the Talkative) died, in 1473. This accords well with its architectural details, which place it among the fifteenth century ‘raised entry’ castles, similar to Ardintenant, Dunmanus and Dunlough. 

The best source material for all the castles of Ivaha is the thesis The Tower Houses of West Cork by Mark Samuel. Here’s what Samuel says about the location of Black Castle, which he refers to throughout as Leamcon. Leamcon, by the way, means Hound’s Leap, which Samuel suggests may refer to a legend about the gully across which you must pass to get to the castle.

The western part of the Ivagha peninsula, the territory of O’Mahony Fionn, is now sparsely populated. Away from the formidable Mizen Head, the ice-sculpted land meets the sea with low, rocky cliffs. In this part of the Survey region, the strike of the rock is almost south-west/northeast, the layers being tipped close to the vertical, the shore tends to be sculpted into long peninsulas and islands running along the strike. Exposed to the Atlantic, it is a wild treeless shore. The fields once densely fanned prior to the famine, are now mostly given over to pasture. The tower house stands far from any road at the west end of a long narrow peninsula. Erosion has nearly severed the tip of the peninsula; only a precarious natural bridge, now reinforced with concrete, joins it to the mainland. The island is large, the ruins cover only a small fraction of its area. The tower house stands towards the island’s east end at its highest point. The promontory is for the most part gentle in relief, being covered by grass-grown ‘drift’ deposits.

THE TOWER HOUSES OF WEST CORK
MARK WYCLIFFE SAMUEL, 1998

When Niall bought the property the bridge consisted of a few planks. It must have been a hairy business getting across to it until he built the concrete walkway you see today. Niall and his family spent their summers at the castle – can you imagine, as a child, what it must have been like to have your own castle to play and live in? Magical! Although I do think about what it must have been like for Dorothy, who spent the weeks there with the children while Niall worked in Dublin. How did she manage to feed them and keep them safe? A heroine, indeed.

Like the others I have described in detail, Leamcon is a raised entry castle. To recap – the ground floor entry gave access to the ground floor, and possibly by means of a ladder to the second floor and mezzanine. The raised entry gave access to the second floor, and then, by means of a strait mural staircase, the the floors above the vault. Take a look at the cut-away diagram in Illustrating the Tower House: A Guest Blog to see what I am talking about here. Thus, the upper floors could only be accessed by one staircase, a defence feature, and being above the vault provided security from fire in the lower floors. Given that there were no fireplaces, and that braziers were lit in the middle of the floor, with smoke escaping however it could, this was probably a good idea.

Another defensive feature was the small opes, or windows, through which no attacker could climb and little light could penetrate

As regards defence, the castle was attacked by Carew’s forces after the Siege of Dunboy in 1602. According to Samuel:

Sir George Carew reported, on 13th July 1602, that his lieutenant, Captain Roger Harvy, had taken several castles strongly seated on rocks and necks of land. All were so ‘neere unto the sea where ships may safely ride, and fit places for an enemy to hold as, namely Leamcon, Donnegall’ and others. The decision was taken to burn these tower houses. Conor, the head of the sept, received quarter with his men and migrated to Spain immediately afterwards. He was subsequently pardoned but seems never to have returned.

THE TOWER HOUSES OF WEST CORK
MARK WYCLIFFE SAMUEL, 1998

Black Castle wasn’t burned and it subsequently was reclaimed for a time by the O’Mahonys, although the clan forfeited all or most of their lands after the rebellions of the 1640s, and the castle was abandoned from at least the 1690s. Such was the state of it when the O’Mahony Reunion took place here in 65 or 66.

All those years of neglect had resulted in a castle in a perilous state of dereliction and Niall and his builders set about stabilising it before they could make it habitable. The base batter – the broad foundation that give the walls a strong base – had first to be repaired. This called for great skill and the results are impressive. Niall has left a band of membrane to indicate where the old and new stone work meets.

The castle was built to align with the strike of the rock, a feature of most of the Ivaha tower houses. The strike is the compass direction in which the rock bed is running and for West Cork that is mainly in a northeast to south west direction. The builders chose a prominent and solid rocky platform, still easily discernible, and probably prepared it by digging away any soil and loose rock and may have laid down a layer of mortar to help bind the lowest slabs to the rock surface. 

At Black Castle, the quality of the masonry varies, leading me to think that not all stone masons were as skilled, or perhaps as careful, as others. See the variation in the image below. The quoins (corner stones) were made of fine-grained sandstone that can be freely dressed in any direction (called Freestone), while the stones used to dress the outer layer were carefully chosen (or deliberately shaped) to be smooth and even, lending a pleasingly sheer surface to the castle exterior, sometimes called  an “ashlar finish.”

The raised entry, in the case of Black Castle, is directly about the ground-level entry, similar to Ardintenant, but unlike Dunmanus where the entries are staggered. The entrance to the upper door would have been by means of a wooden staircase, possible from the small rocky knoll across from the entrance.

In his conversion of the castle to provide habitable space, Niall concentrated on the upper floors. There is a living room, kitchen dining area and bedrooms, along with a toilet and shower which are situated in the original garderobe space. 

By roofing and waterproofing the building, Niall has kept further deterioration at bay. It is a joyous thing to sit and look over the countryside with a cup of tea on hand, or to climb up to the wall walk and gaze over the wild and rugged peninsula, imagining Carew’s forces advancing across the sea.

Niall Hyde has managed, on a limited budget, to salvage Black Castle and indeed turn it into a space that his family enjoyed. We should all be grateful to him, and to others who have taken on such tasks with vision and courage. Without the Niall Hydes of this world, we would all be the poorer.

Planning a Plantation: Jobson’s 1589 Map of Munster Part 1

The sixteenth century was a desperate time in Munster. Two successive Desmond Rebellions (read about them here and here) had resulted in a devastated countryside where, according to the Annals of the Four Masters the lowing of a cow, or the whistle of the ploughboy, could scarcely be heard from Dunquinn to Cashel in Munster. The power of the FitzGeralds, Lords of Desmond, and their allies among the Gaelic chieftains, had been broken.

The Tudor government determined that what was needed was a complete colonising effort, that would bring the benefits of English civilisation to the lawless Irish. William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, set about planning the Plantation of Munster. 

In June 1584, a commission surveyed southwest Munster, mapping out the lands belonging to a swathe of Irish lords associated with the rebellion, which were then granted to a small group of wealthy English Undertakers.

John Dorney: The Munster Plantation and the MacCarthys, 1583-1597
Jobson’s dedication – to the Right Honourable the Lord Burleigh, Lord High Treasurer of England

What a project like this needed, of course, was an accurate map and they were hard to come by in medieval Ireland. Francis Jobson, a free-lance cartographer, set himself the task of producing such a map, and in 1589 he inscribed this one, The Province of Munster Map (the subject of this post), to Cecil. The original is in the library of Trinity College and I have been given permission to use it in our blog (see end of post for complete citation.)

Jobson’s signature

George Carew, one of the primary planters, the first President of Munster, was a man who asserted he had an ancestral claim to large chunks of Munster. To back up his various claims, he collected papers and maps in support of the colonising efforts, and these maps later found their way to Trinity College in Dublin, to form part of a collection called the Hardiman Atlas, after the nineteenth century librarian who recognised what they were and bound them together.

The Province of Munster Map is but one of this collection, now digitised and available for viewing in the Digital Repository of Ireland. And an excellent job they have done of it – the high-resolution image is so clear that it allows us to zoom in and see lots of detail. Here is the complete map.

The first thing that strikes the modern viewer is that Ireland is on its back – that is, instead of north being at the top, west is. This wasn’t unusual for the time. JH Andrews, one of Ireland’s foremost cartographic historians explains it thus, With east at the bottom, Dublin, the Englishman’s point of entry to Ireland, is the point on the map nearest him. To provide a more normal orientation, I have turned the map sideways, below, so you can assess how accurate it is.

The task facing Jobson was to provide as clear information as possible for the colonising effort. Any kinds of fortifications, where the Irish could defend their territory, were important, as were transportation corridors, by sea, river or land, as well as barriers to movement, such as mountains or dense forests. Control of the fisheries had generated great wealth for the Irish chieftains so it was important to have details of coastal areas. 

Speaking of Jobson’s Map of Ulster, Annaleigh Margey says

His maps are crucial to our understanding of England’s changing relationship with Ulster at the end of the sixteenth century. As the Nine Years’ War began, Jobson provided representations of the Gaelic lordships in Ulster, but also imposed England’s vision for the creation of a new county system onto the provincial landscape. In Jobson’s 1598 map, now at Trinity College, Dublin (p. 42), this framing of the new political geography is obvious. Throughout Ulster, the various Gaelic lordships are denoted by the lord’s name and a line defining their boundary. Settlements such as castles and churches that could be integrated into English settlement plans are displayed by small replicas in red across the map.

Annaleigh Margey: Visualising the Plantation:mapping the changing face of Ulster
History Ireland, Issue 6 (Nov/Dec 2009), Volume 17

She could well have been speaking of the Map of Munster. The principal families and their territories are all presented, as well as their main castles. While West Cork is not rendered accurately, we can see what Jobson felt was important to include. The O’Mahonys (Mahound) are there and the castles shown for them are Dunbeacon, Rossbrin and Ardintenant, which is labelled C o mahoun, as befits the castle of the Chief (see my post on Ardintenant here). The whole of Ivaha (now the Mizen Peninsula) is assigned to Mohon (spelling was approximate in these maps) and Crookhaven is indicated, probably because it is an excellent harbour.

The O’Driscolls are shown at Baltymore, with Castles also on Sherkin (Ineseyrkan) and Cape Clere. The Ilen River is shown as the Ellyn ff (ff or flu is often found on old maps to designate a river). Interestingly, the whole of the Sheep’s Head has no detail on it and only one word – Rymers. The O’Dalys were the traditional bards of several Irish families and they had their bardic school near Kilcrohane – they are The Rymers! The Abbey in Bantry is noted (in fact it was a Franciscan Friary) – and even Priest’s Leap is on this map. Once the only land route between Bantry and Kenmare, it is now a steep, treacherous and extremely scenic back road.

We have only just started looking at this map. The next post will continue the journey. Meanwhile – have a look yourself and see what you can see. I have lots of questions about it – for example, about the scale that Jobson uses (above) – I am hoping our readers might have some answers!

I am grateful indeed to Michelle Agar, Cataloguer, Digital Collections, at the Library of Trinity College Dublin, who gave permission to feature the map from the Hardiman collection in this blog. Also to the kind office of Dr Áine Madden, Communications and Engagement Coordinator with the Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy. The complete citation for the map is as follows: Jobson, Francis, & Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, Trinity College Dublin. (2021) The Province of Munster, Digital Repository of Ireland [Distributor], Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin [Depositing Institution], https://doi.org/10.7486/DRI.rb69b272p

Ardintenant Castle

Home of the Taoiseach, or Head of the Clan, Ardintenant was one of the most important of the O’Mahony Castles of Ivaha (or what we now call The Mizen). Fortunately, it is relatively intact and we can observe and record much about it. The drawing above was done by James N Healy for his magnificent book on The Castles of County Cork. This post is another in my series on The Castles of Ivaha.

First the name – Ardintenant has been variously interpreted as coming from Árd an Tine (Ord on Tinneh, Height of the Fire), Árd an tSaighneáin (Ord on Tye-nawn Height of the Flash, or Beacon) or Árd an Tiarna (Ord on Teerna, Height of the High Chief). Any of these would be apt, since tower houses by the sea like this one (viewed from the sea, above) could be used as navigation beacons, possibly with a fire on the battlements. We also know that it was the residence of the head of the O’Mahony Clan, even though it was not the largest or most elaborate of the O’Mahony castles. Locally, it is also known as White Castle, which may refer to the white render that once made it stand out in the landscape (for more on render and castle colours, see the discussion on Kilcoe Castle). The photograph below demonstrates that it was prominent on the landscape and close to, although not right on, the sea.

It now stands in the middle of a working farm, surrounded by stone buildings that are picturesque and notable in their own right.

Ardintenant is typical of castles built during the 15th century by Irish clan chiefs – wealthy and powerful and anxious to assert their claims on land and sea.

Dermot Runtach (the Reliable) succeeded in I400; his life and the lives of his sons spanned the Fifteenth Century. He was celebrated as a ‘truly hospitable man, who never refused to give anything to anyone’ . . . The period of 1400 -1500 was the most peaceful and prosperous period in the history of the clan. The Ivagha peninsula was protected by the sea on three sides and the family became wealthy from the exaction of dues from the continental fishing fleets; trade also enriched them, causing long-standing enmity with the citizens of Cork. Tradition relates that the majority of the O’Mahony tower houses in Ivagha were built by or for the sons of Dermod Runtach. The date of Dermod Runtach’s death is recorded in the Annals of Loch Cé as 1427.


THE TOWER HOUSES OF WEST CORK
MARK WYCLIFFE SAMUEL, 1998

Dermot Runtach’s sons were the castle builders. Conor Cabaicc succeeded his father in 1427 and remained Taoiseach for 46 years, embarking on an ambitious program of construction to provide castles for his sons and brothers, beginning with Ardintenant. He died in 1473, by which time probably all of the castles of Ivaha were built and occupied by various members of his derbfine (extended family). Cabaicc means of the exactions (or forced tributes), although it is possible that Conor was more benignly known as Cabach – meaning talkative. His brother, Fineen, the Táiniste (heir-in-waiting) built Rossbrin Castle, about which Robert has written, and which is the castle in our view at Nead an Iolair. Rossbrin and the remains of a small tower on Castle Island are both visible from Ardintenant.

While there is evidence that other O’Mahony castles were built on pre-existing fortifications such as promontory forts (see Three Castle Head, for example) or ring forts, this is most visible at Ardintenant, where the ring fort can still be seen as a circular rampart around the tower house. You can make out part of it in the photo above. Another unusual feature is the survival of a single flanking tower, along the line of the ring fort and across from the tower house, although there may have been more than one originally, since the 1840s OS map shows what could be a second one – the leftmost building on the line of the ringfort below. Note that farm buildings also dot the site even at this early stage.

The possible second flanking tower had disappeared by the time the next series of maps were produced, around the 1890s. The farm buildings have changed as well.

In his marvellous paper on Ardintenant Castle in Mizen Journal 11, 2003, John Hawkes investigates the history and construction of the castle and provides elevation and plan drawings. I am grateful for his scholarship and thoroughness, which has informed the following description of what is left at this site, as well as provided illustrations.

The presence of the ringfort raises an intriguing prospect since it appears that instead of the usual rectangular bawn, surrounded by a stone wall (see the illustration in this post), we have a round bawn, with the stone wall built on top of the bank of the ringfort. Although that stone wall is not obvious now, it is noted in the description of the ring fort in the National Monuments survey. Thus, what we have here is a hybrid ring fort/tower house – a sensible adaptation of a pre-existing fortification and a continuation of the site as a high-ranking residence. The National Monuments survey also refers to an external fosse, although traces of it are hard to see on the ground. If it was originally a substantial ditch, another possibility is that the bank was surrounded by a moat. 

As with all of the O’Mahony Castles, Ardintenant is the type of tower house known as Raised Entry, that is, the ground floor door allows access to the public areas of the castle, while the door above it, originally accessed via a wooden stairway, gives on to a set of steps up to the private area.

The first two-and-a-mezzanine floors are covered by a vault. This set-up was partly defensive – the upper floors could only be accessed through this raised doorway and staircase – and partly for security, in that the vault was a barrier should a fire break out on the lower floors. The doorway to the left leads to a garderobe, while on the right are two deeply splayed window embrasures.

At Ardintenant, as with Dunmanus, the ground floor has been in use as a cow byre. It is normally impossible to access the upper floors, although those who have done so report that it is in good condition. That floor is reached by means of a mural staircase that rises from the raised entry.

A second staircase, in this case a spiral, gives access from the upper floor to the wall walk. This was not a castle built for comfort – in common with the other 15th century O’Mahony castle it had no fireplaces and very few windows.

Above the vault was what Hawkes calls the Great Hall. One large room, accessed via the mural staircase, the only notable feature of which is are deeply splayed window with seats in the embrasure. Picture the Lady of the house seated here, trying to catch whatever light she could as she bent over her handwork. 

In one corner of the Great Hall, the spiral staircase led up to the wall walk (what Hawkes calls the Allure). While nothing remains of these battlements now, we can assume that there was a walkway around the roof, perhaps with Irish crenellations and a sentry box.

The flanking tower (above) is covered in ivy, so it’s hard to make out details. It may have looked a bit like the one Westropp called The Turret, at Dunlough.

It’s much smaller than the castle, rectangular, and three stories high. The illustration above, by Jack Roberts, indicates the relative sizes. The way in was from the level of the curtain wall and each floor was connected by a ladder, except for the wall walk/allure, reached by a spiral stone stairs. 

Hawkes tells us that “its function appears to have been to accommodate hostages.” He bases that on the absence of a ground level entry (the current hole on the ground level having been broken through in more recent times), so that the ‘dungeon’ was accessed through a trap door from the room above, which in turn he calls a ‘detention room.’ See my post on Dunmanus for a discussion of possible functions for rooms like the ‘dungeon.’

Ardintenant is still standing and intact, but a lot of the base batter – the broad stone base that gives it its strength and stability – is missing and holes have been punched through the walls in the past.

Along with the other extant O’Mahony castles, its continued survival cannot be taken for granted. It’s a listed monument on private land, and Ireland’s complicated heritage laws means that it can’t be deliberately damaged, but conversely, there is no onus on the landowners to conserve it at their own expense. All fingers crossed that it remains standing for ages to come.

Brian Lalor’s sketch of Ardintenant Castle from 1987, from his field notebook