Glinsk Castle is a

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

and National Monument located in County Galway,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Location

Glinsk Castle is located in the centre of Glinsk village, halfway between Creggs and

Ballymoe Ballymoe (historically ''Bellamoe'', from ) is a village in County Galway, Ireland. Ballymoe is situated on the western side of the River Suck that separates counties Galway and Roscommon. The N60 national secondary road meets the R360 reg ...

, in the valley of the

River Suck The River Suck ( ga, An tSuca ) is a river within the Shannon River Basin in Ireland, 133 km (82.5 mi) in length. It is the main tributary of the River Shannon. It meets the Shannon a kilometre south of the village of Shannonbridge. ...

History

Glinsk Castle was built in the mid-17th century (begun c. 1628) and is reputed to be the last castle built in Ireland (obviously this depends on one's definition of "castle", for example

Glenveagh Castle Glenveagh Castle ( ga, Caisleán Ghleann Bheatha ) is a large castellated mansion located in Glenveagh National Park, County Donegal, Ireland and was built in about 1870. History Captain John George Adair built Glenveagh Castle between ...

was constructed in 1870). It was the seat of the Burke baronets of Glinsk. It was gutted by fire, perhaps during the Cromwellian wars, leaving it well preserved. In 1829 Skeffington Gibbon described it as "a terrific roofless pile, haunted by a colony of rats."

Castle

The castle stands on a limestone floor overlooking the countryside; famously, one can see all five

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Del ...

. The castle is rectangular with two towers protruding to the south. It has two chimney shafts, each a battery of five diagonal stacks. The windows are

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed with

weepers Pleurants or weepers (the English meaning of ''pleurants'') are anonymous sculpted figures representing mourners, used to decorate elaborate tomb monuments, mostly in the late Middle Ages in Western Europe. Typically they are relatively small, ...

. Defensive features included

gun loops An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions ( merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed ou ...

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from th ...

s and high basements. It was once surrounded by a bawn wall with turrets but little of that remains.

References

{{Reflist National Monuments in County Galway Castles in County Galway