Carlow Castle

Carlow Castle - Photo © Andreas F. Borchert, 3 Sep. 09

Carlow Castle, County Carlow - Photo © Andreas F. Borchert, 3 September 2009

Carlow Castle - Photo © Andreas F. Borchert, 3 Sep. 09

Carlow Castle is situated on the banks of the River Barrow near Carlow town centre, in County Carlow, Ireland. It was formerly one of the most impressive Norman castles in Ireland, but only the western wall and two towers survive. The castle is now the imposing centrepiece of a major urban renewal programme.

Features

The castle is a detached four-bay, three-storey four-walled keep with flanking drum towers. It was built of coursed rubble masonry with slit opes, mullioned windows, cross loops and castellations. Originally, the keep was a two-story building, with a third story added in the 15th century. The eastern half of the castle was undermined and collapsed in 1814. The western half, with its flanking drum towers survives to its full length. The castle was almost entirely constructed of limestone. It is sited on the artificially levelled summit of a rocky knoll, at the confluence of the rivers Barrow and Burren.

History

Carlow Castle, 1786

The original keep was a three-storey rectangular structure with cylindrical corner towers. It was probably built between 1207 and 1213 by William Marshall on the site of a motte erected by Hugh de Lacy in the 1180s. It may be the earliest example of a four-towered keep in Britain or Ireland. The entrance is at the first-floor level in the north wall and access to all storeys, which had timber floors, was by way of stone stairways in the thickness of the west wall. Ownership of the castle passed to the Crown in 1306 and was later granted to the Earls of Norfolk, who retained it until confiscation in 1537. James FitzGerald captured it in 1494, and it was taken again by Silken Thomas in 1535, and changed hands a number of times before being purchased by Donogh O'Brien, Earl of Thomond in 1616. It fell to the Confederates during the Irish Confederate Wars in 1642. In that year, a detachment from the Duke of Ormond's army rescued 500 starving English prisoners from the castle. The Castle was later returned to Thomond after being liberated by Henry Ireton in 1650. It later passed to the Hamilton family.

In 1813, the Hamilton family leased the castle to a physician, Dr. Philip Parry Price Middleton, who spent £2,000 in an effort to make it habitable as a lunatic asylum. On 13 February 1814, in attempting to create an underground passageway using dynamite blasting powder, the eastern wall collapsed and brought down the east towers and adjoining walls. The stonework was subsequently broken up and carted away from the site.

Excavations

The castle area was excavated for the first time in 1996 by a team of archaeologists under the direction of Dr. Kieran O' Conor of the Office of Public Works. In the 1997 Autumn Journal of "Archaeology Ireland" Dr. O' Conor published a summary of his findings. The eight-week excavation was carried out between May and July, with work concentrating on what had been the interior of the towered keep. Finding the remains of a series of post-holes inside a curving ditch, running under the walls of the towered keep and therefore pre-dating it, was an important result. The remains of a corn-drying kiln were found to the north of this and also occurred under what was the original line of the western wall of the keep and appears to be contemporary with the post-holes and fosse. These features were all interpreted as representing the remains of an earlier castle, whose defences and buildings seem to have been constructed of earth and timber. A reinterpretation of the historical sources suggests that this primary timber castle was built in the early 1180s by Hugh de Lacy for John de Clahull.

The architecture of the towered keep and an analysis of the available historical sources indicate that it was begun about 1210 at the behest of William Marshal the Elder, taking a number of years to be finally completed. At the start of the building of the keep, the summit of the knoll was cleared away, including most of the defences and buildings belonging to the original timber castle. The keep had no foundations and was erected on the artificially created, flattened ground surface. Very little occupation evidence was uncovered during the excavation.