Fermoyle Castle (Iveragh)
| Fermoyle Castle (Caisleán Fhormaoileach) | ||
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_-_20170724_16_23_45.jpg) Southwest corner of the Tower House ruin |
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| Alternative name (s): | Formaoil Castle | |
| Creation time : | early 17th century | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg ( Tower House ) | |
| Conservation status: | Ruins | |
| Standing position : | Irish clan | |
| Construction: | mortared stone blocks and slabs | |
| Place: | Formaoil Townland (western Iveragh Peninsula ), County Kerry | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 52 '2.1 " N , 10 ° 14' 51.7" W | |
| Height: | 55 m ASL | |
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The Fermoyle Castle (also Formaoil Castle called; Irish : Caisleán Fhormaoileach ) was a late medieval tower house of the early 17th century in a hamlet north of Ballinskelligs Bay and northeast of Ballinskelligs in Town Country Fermoyle ( Formaoil ) in the constituency Teeranearagh ( Trian Iarthach ) to the west the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry in Ireland . There are only remains of the wall today. Parts were built in later administration buildings to the east of it.
location
The ruin is located on a small protrusion of a hilly terrain, which here slopes about five to ten meters wide in a wave towards the bay, in the southern part of the 7.76 km 2 townland , also called Fermoyle (comparable to a German district ), that extends roughly in the middle of the northwestern finger of the Iveragh Peninsula between Waterville and Cahersiveen . The ruin is located in the middle of a small hamlet made up of several farms, which was an administrative center of a subclan of the O'Sullivan family in the late Middle Ages. The hamlet is on a dead end road from the R566 country road (500 meters west of the hamlet of Emlaghmore ), which connects Ballinskelligs with the national road N70 to Cahersiveen and represents the western round of the Ring of Kerry .
The Tower House must not be confused with the Fermoyle Castle of the same name on the Dingle Peninsula .
history
There is hardly any written information about the Tower House. It is generally believed that the Tower House was only built at the beginning of the 17th century by the O'Sullivans of Formoyle and Ballycarna and only a few decades later in the battles of Cromwell with his New Model Army during the course of the Irish Confederation Wars during the brutal reconquest of the Catholic areas of ships in Ballinskelligs Bay and was destroyed again in 1651.
The Tower House was not rebuilt; its remains were used as a quarry for the houses around the hamlet and new administrative buildings to the east of it in the hamlet. This includes a long barn (similar to a tithe barn ) whose gate entrance and corner stones were built with the hewn blocks of the Tower House. Opposite the barn, an administration building with a stables was built, the large stones of which are also said to come from the Tower House.
By 1760 the area was owned by Charles Sugrue and Honora O'Connell , an aunt of Daniel O'Connell . One of the sons of the Sugrue / O'Connell family later became Bishop of Kerry. Around 1820 John Sugrue built a house in the area of the Tower House ( Fermoyle House ). After the last owners of the Sugrue family left home and area for Cork , Fermoyle House was used as a rectory until 1955 ; the barn converted into a dance hall in the area. Both buildings are also ruins today, albeit well preserved.
description
The few remaining remains of this tower house still consist of an elongated block of an approx. One meter high foundation wall in the south to the more than three meter high southwest corner and a larger part of the southeast corner, which also extends to about three meters in height and is more massive is. The Tower House was roughly square, about 15 by 15 meters. The thickness of the foundation walls was about 1.4 meters. The Tower House consisted of roughly cut slabs of rock from the nearby mountain formation (a kind of slab of slate), which were repeatedly connected with larger stone blocks. The whole thing was mortared . The corners are said to have been made of sandstone blocks . However, no remains of it have survived. The Tower House is said to have consisted only of a large main room on the ground floor, to which a small room (the presumed watchman's room) was added to the south-east. Access is assumed to be in the east. A vaulted roof is suspected from the remains of the Tower House. A corbel of the first floor should still be present. Windows or entrance areas are no longer clearly verifiable.
Todays use
The remains of the Tower House are now on private land and can hardly be seen from the street. A visit is possible after consultation with the friendly owners (status: July 2017). The old Fermoyle House and the barn are directly visible from the access road.
Others
The ruin is identified in the geographic information system of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland of the (Irish) National Monuments Service under the number KE088-025 .
See also
literature
- Ann O'Sullivan, John Sheehan (both editors): The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry , South West Kerry Archaeological Survey, Cork University Press, Cork 1996, ISBN 978-0-9025-6184-7 . No. 1111
Web links
- KE088-025: Fermoyle Castle (2 entries) in the Historic Environment Viewer of the Irish National Monuments Service
- Fermoyle Castle (Iveragh) in the Landed Estates Database of the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies at NUI Galway ; accessed on September 4, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ Caisleán Fhormaoileach on www.logainm.ie (online database of the National Library of Ireland Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltach ); accessed on September 4, 2017
- ↑ Teeranearagh Electoral Division, Co. Kerry on www.townlands.ie ; accessed on September 4, 2017
- ^ Fermoyle Townland, Co. Kerry at www.townlands.ie ; accessed on September 4, 2017