White's Castle is a 16th-century

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, to command and defend strategic points ...

Athy Athy ( ; ) is a market town at the meeting of the River Barrow and the Grand Canal in south-west County Kildare, Ireland, 72 kilometres southwest of Dublin. A population of 11,035 (as of the 2022 census) made it the sixth largest town in Kil ...

County Kildare County Kildare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the Local gove ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. Built on the site of an earlier 15th-century castle, White's Castle was built to guard the main river crossing in Athy () and was extended over successive centuries.

Location

White's Castle is located in the centre of Athy, on the east bank of the

River Barrow The Barrow () is a river in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is one of The Three Sisters (Ireland), The Three Sisters; the other two being the River Suir and the River Nore. The Barrow is the longest of the three rivers and, at 192 km (12 ...

, overlooking Crom Abú Bridge. It is three-storey tower house with a battered base. On the right of the main doorway is a depiction of coat-of-arms of the

Earl of Kildare Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. The titl ...

History

Though much of the current structure dates to the 16th century, there was likely an earlier structure on this site, as a 1297 document records that David Fitz le Feure was held in "the

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

of Athy". A Norman

was built on the site in 1417 by

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 1st Earl of Waterford, 7th Baron Talbot, KG (17 July 1453), known as "Old Talbot" and "Terror of the French" was an English nobleman and a noted military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was t ...

, King's Lieutenant, during the reign of

King Henry V Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against ...

, to protect the new bridge over the

. William Scryvener was

constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. ''Constable'' is commonly the rank of an officer within a police service. Other peo ...

of the castle between 1422 and 1426. By 1505, this castle was derelict and

Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare (born – ), known variously as "Garret the Great" (Gearóid Mór) or "The Great Earl" (An tIarla Mór), was Ireland's premier peer. He served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1477 to 1494, and from 1496 u ...

was asked to rebuild it. Work was done on the castle during the reign of

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

, with Lord Leonard Grey writing to

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

about the castle in 1536. In 1573, Richard Coosen, Sovereign of Athy added a crucifixion plaque on the left side of the original doorway. Construction of the fortified house was complete around 1575. It was originally known as the White Castle or the New Castle, with "White's Castle" being a later corruption of the name. Some sources record a matching tower on the west end of the bridge: a 1516 reads that the Monastery of St. Thomas granted the use of a castle on the west end of the bridge to the Earl of Kildare, while a 1556 map shows castles on both sides of the bridge. No trace of this western castle survives, if it ever existed. The southern wing of the house was a four-storey

. The castle was an important site during the

Irish Confederate Wars The Irish Confederate Wars, took place from 1641 to 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, all then ...

(1641–1653), when it went back and forth between Royal and Confederate hands:

Owen Roe O'Neill Owen Roe O'Neill ( Irish: ''Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill;'' – 6 November 1649) was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster. O'Neill left Ireland at a young age and spent most of his life as a mercenary ...

took it in 1645, the Royalists took it in 1648, then Cromwell arrived in 1649. In the early 18th century, the building was redeveloped for use as a gaol, and by 1730 White's Castle became the local prison. It had nine cells and was notorious for its poor conditions. Between 1795 and 1802, a three-storey rectangular extension was added to the north end, and

battlements A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

were added; the line of the original west wall of the castle can be easily seen around the halfway point of the current wall. After the

1798 rebellion The Irish Rebellion of 1798 (; Ulster-Scots: ''The Turn out'', ''The Hurries'', 1798 Rebellion) was a popular insurrection against the British Crown in what was then the separate, but subordinate, Kingdom of Ireland. The main organising force ...

the castle was used as a prison for Irish rebels. A small extension was added to the north end in 1830 and the building was used as an

Irish Constabulary The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin ...

barracks.

Sash windows A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

were added in 1872. In the late 19th century, it was transformed into a private dwelling. It belonged to the Doyle and Norman families until being sold in 2005 for €1.3 million; in 2012 it went on sale again for just €195,000. In 2019 the castle was sold for €450,000. On 17 March 2021, the castle's owner, Dolores Cahill, organised a

St Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (), is a religious and cultural holiday held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Chris ...

party at the castle in defiance of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on social gatherings.

Gallery

File:River Barrow and WhitesCastle Athy.JPG File:White Castle in Athy, Kildare, Ireland.JPG File:White Castle, Athy, Kildare, Ireland.JPG File:Whites_Castle_in_winter.jpg

References

{{authority control Castles in County Kildare Athy Buildings and structures completed in the 16th century Defunct prisons in the Republic of Ireland Tower houses in the Republic of Ireland