CSG Annual Conference - Cork - April 2018 - Mallow ... to foundation level but the east end ......

65THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO 29: 2015-16THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO 32: 2018-19

Mallow Castle - a lightly fortified country house, built c 1593-1599. A three-storeyed gabledoblong, one room deep with cellar below. Two octagonal turrets terminated the main facade.

CSG Annual Conference - Cork - April 2018 - Mallow Fortified House

Mallow fortified houseLocation: Mallow, Ir. Meallach or Magh nAla(the plain of the stone or rock), lies in thetownland of Castlelands, Co. Cork.Description: Mallow Castle is in reality a forti-fied house. lt stands on a slight limestone emi-nence, overlooking a bridge on the BlackwaterRiver about 150m to the south. It comprises arectangular three-storey house with interior di-mensions of 25m by 8.3m, with four-storeytowers projecting from the NW and SW cor-ners, and from the centre of the east and westwalls. The corner towers are polygonal in plan,whilst those at the centres of the long front andrear of the house have straight sides and apointed front. The west (front) tower has ashallower projection than the east (rear) tower. The castle is entered through two ground-floordoorways, one located in the north wall of thecentral projection on the west wall and the other

in the main east wall just south of the centralprojection on that side. Both door surroundshave three-centred arches. The west door hasdecorative stop chamfers and a yett-hole on thewest side. The interior is divided by a cross-wall in line with the south walls of the centraltowers. The west end of the cross-wall col-lapsed to foundation level but the east endstands to first-floor level and has ground andfirst-floor doors which connected the northand south sections of the house. The house had wooden floors throughout,now indicated by lines of joist sockets. Allfloors were well-lit by windows with rectangu-lar lights, divided by a single mullion on theground floor, by two mullions and a transomon the first floor and by a single mullion andtransom on the second floor. The NW towercontained a spiral wooden stair, and there mayalso have been a stair in the east central tower.


The latter has a partially collapsed garderobeshaft in its front angle. There is a ground-floorfireplace, extensively repaired, at the north endof the east wall. There are also first- and sec-ond-floor fireplaces at the south end of the eastwall and the centre of the south wall, none ofthem intact. The house was defended by a seriesof gun loops with stirrup openings on the mainwest and north walls, and in the SW, centralwest and NW towers. The other two sides of thehouse have no loops, probably because theyfaced into a bawn. Many of the loops are posi-tioned directly under window sills.Ground-floor and first-floor doorways at theeast end of the south wall lead into an addedlean-to annexe, measuring 6.4m by 8.8m,against the south wall of house. This annexeoriginally stood three storeys high, but its wallsare now mostly reduced to ground level. Thereis a large fireplace in the north wall (the southwall of the house). An old plan by Harold Leaskshows brick paving laid in herringbone patternin front of this fireplace and a ‘curious benchshaded by a partition or screen...’ on its eastside. Inserted doorways in the east wall of theSW tower, one above the other, connected thetower with the annexe. The second-floor door-

way replaced an original fireplace in the tower,and a replacement fireplace was inserted in thewindow embrasure in the SE wall of the tower. Leask's plan also shows a ‘cellar’ immedi-ately north of the cross-wall in the house. Hisreport also mentions ‘fragments of thick,small slates, and of molten lead’ found duringrenovation work, these taken to indicate that‘the timber roof was slated and had gutters oflead’. His reconstruction of the roof shows agabled roof over the main block with twosubsidiary gables on each side wall, betweenthe towers, and he also suggests an attic floorin the roof. The plan by Leask also showswall foundations within the fortified housebut not associated with it, which may be partof an earlier castle.Summary History: The fortified house wasbuilt by Sir Thomas Norreys who was grantedthe Manor of Mallow during the Munster plan-tation and who died in 1599. lt was assaultedby Confederate forces in 1645 but held out. Itwas assaulted again by a Jacobite army in 1689and badly damaged. The Jephsons, who thenowned it, abandoned it and built a new man-sion on the site of the castle’s stables.

Mallow - plan, showing the side entrance and stairs /garderobe tower to the rear.



Mallow: 1. Staircase tower with flanker gun-loop overlooking the entrance. 2. Mason mark on theexterior? 3. Detail of the mouldings of the plinth at basement level. 4. The shell of the latrineturret, with site guide James Lyttleton, in the blue jacket, addressing the group. He also introducedBlarney, Ightamurragh and Kanturk.


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Mallow. Interior view of the (NE) octagonal staircase turret with a wide elegant circular stair.

CSG Annual Conference - Cork - April 2018 - Mallow ... to foundation level but the east end ......

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