The Castle
The core of Athclare castle is a detached multiple-bay three-storey tower house, built on a rectangular plan in the 1550s. To the east of the tower block is a hall containing an early 17th-century chimneypiece. The 16th-century tower house stands complete to the parapet with various loop insertions, including angle and cross loops, and there is also a ventilator at the upper level at the opposite end to the tower. Features of the castle also include a pitched slate roof, clay ridge tiles, red brick corbelled chimneystack, half-round gutters on corbelled eaves course, corbelled stone parapet to tower, random rubble stone walling, stone quoins, stone string course to parapet, pointed archways, square-headed window opening, arrow loops to north, south and east including decorative arrow loop to first floor south elevation, stone surrounds, a pointed arch door opening to south, and dressed limestone voussoirs. The castle is still in partially residential use, and a two-storey house directly abuts it to the west. As a result, the castle features some relatively modern additions, including, circular cast-iron downpipes, a steel gate, square-headed door openings to north, smooth rendered surrounds, some uPVC windows, uPVC and timber and glazed doors, hipped and pitched slate roofs, random rubble stone walling, segmental-headed window openings, red brick surrounds, painted timber casements etc., as well as a collection of agricultural buildings attached to the old castle.History
Athclare's location, a mere 8 km from the coast (at Annagassan), and within the fertile arable and pasture land of central Louth would have made it a prime location for farming at the time of the tower-house's location. Its being relatively close to the border of the Pale, especially at a time of considerable disorder in North Eastern Ireland at the time of its construction, make obvious the need for a fortified dwelling of the nature of Athclare. Constructed originally for the Barnewell family, the original structure was extended in the 1650s, and by that time was in the hands of the Viscount Taaffe, Taaffes. After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Cromwellian conquest, the Townley Family of Lancashire held the castle (though rented from the grantee, Erasmus Smith of Edmondthorpe) and in 1661, Henry Townley is recorded as having resided there, and his collected papers are a valuable source on the social history of the period. The castle was significantly altered again in the 1840s, with the latter additions resulting in a number of out-buildings being added to form a north-forming courtyard to the site. Writing in the 1940s, the historian Henry G. Tempest described the then state of the castle as follows: The castle sits just east of the modern M1 motorway (Republic of Ireland), M1 Motorway and is a National Monument under the Guardianship of the Irish Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, but under private ownership. At least one of the two fine fireplaces previously within the castle have been removed to the adjacent dwelling house. The castle has the Record of Monuments and Places Number ''"LH018-040----"'' by the National Monuments Service.National Monuments in State Care, op cite.External links
References
{{Historic Irish houses Castles in County Louth Tourist attractions in County Louth National monuments in County Louth Houses in County Louth