Ballinacarriga (or Ballynacarriga), Kilworth, Co Cork
Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 20 “(Corban-Lucas, sub Lucas/IFR) A three storey 5 bay C18 house, originally a seat of the Pyne family, bought ca the 1850s by Laurence Corban, who lived nearby at Maryville, as a wedding present for his daughter when she married John Lucas; the son of the marriage, A.J. Corban-Lucas, refaced the house ca 1880 and added single-storey 2 bay wings, as well as an enclosed porch entered at the side and with a round-headed front-facing window glazed in Romanesque style. The porch was replaced by simpler porch by A.J.L. Corban-Lucas 1936, when the centre of the house had to be reconstructed owing to a severe attack of dry-rot. 2 drawing rooms opening into each other with double doors to form a ballroom, one of the two rooms being in one of the wings. Both rooms have C19 plasterwork cornices; the room in the wing has a more elaborate one, and also a more ornate chimneypiece: Victorian, and of white marble.”
Detached five-bay three-storey country house, built c. 1730, with two-bay flanking two-bay single-storey wings, built c. 1860. Porch to front, lean-to to rear of east wing and single-bay two-storey extension and four-bay two-storey return to rear of house, with flat-roofed one-bay two-storey addition to re-entrant angle of house and return, with cast-iron water tank to roof. Now in use as private house. Hipped slate roof with rendered chimneystacks. Flat roof and moulded render cornice to porch and hipped ends to wings. Hipped slate roof and rendered chimneystack to return. Rendered walls with render quoins and plinth courses. Square-headed window openings with one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, having limestone sills to ground and second floors and moulded render surrounds and continuous render sill course to first floor. One double window to east elevation of return. Round-headed window openings to rear and to east elevation of return, having one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, rear elevation being margined. Square-headed tripartite one-over-one pane timber sliding sash window to porch, with render sill. Square-headed timber panelled doors to porch, with raised render surrounds and limestone steps. Seven-bay two-storey outbuilding to north having half-hipped slate roof, rubble limestone walls and square-headed openings, windows having render sills. Detached nine-bay two-storey outbuilding to west having pitched slate roof, roughly dressed limestone walls, square-headed window openings with render sills, and elliptical-arched vehicular entrances with dressed limestone voussoirs. Square-profile, dressed limestone piers with double-leaf cast-iron gates leading to rear. Square-profile rusticated limestone piers to east, with carved caps and plinth, having double-leaf cast-iron gates, set to boundary limestone plinth walls with spear-headed cast-iron railings.
Appraisal
This country house, built by Cornelius Pyne, has a classically-inspired façade and retains a sombre elegance through the restrained use of ornamentation. The retention of the varied timber sash windows enhances this house and the site retains substantial outbuildings built with fine quality materials. The unusual rusticated limestone piers with cast-iron gates form an imposing entrance to the house.
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2935
A mid 18th century house, home of the Pyne family for over a century until they sold it in the Encumbered Estates’ Court in 1852. Before the sale John G. Pyne was resident, holding the property in perpetuity. The buildings were valued at £18.10 shillings. Bought by Laurence Corban it passed from the Pynes to the Corban Lucas family, members of whom were still resident at the beginning of the 21st century.
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 223.
P. 13. The Tower House was the ubiquitous late medieval dwelling, found throughout the county. They were built through the C15 and C16 and into the early C17. (inland clans, including the Hurleys, McSweeneys and some McCarthys, began to build such towers such as Ballinvard (Rossmore), Togher and Ballinoroher (Clonakilty) at a comparatively late date, perhaps as a reaction to the disturbances arising during the Desmond Rebellion.). These houses typically take the form of a tall rectangular stone tower, turrets being comparatively rare in Cork, with the exception of some towers in the SW of the county, such as Kilcoe and Dunmanus. They vary greatly in size, from Monteen (Kilmalooda) at 6m x 5.6m, to Castle Richard (Killeagh) at a more typical 11.4m x 9.9m, up to Kilcrea at 15m x 11m, and Blarney at 19m x 11. [p. 14] Cork towers usually have four or five storeys, making them taller than those in Leinster and Ulster. The provision of two vautls, over the second and fourth storeys, is typical, though rare in sw Cork. Vaults can be semicircular, pointed or bluntly pointed, and were formed over wicker mats laid on timber centering, in contrast to C13.14 vaults, which were plank-centred.
The entrance is generally at ground level, unlike the raised doors used in hall houses and keeps. The wooden doors open inwards and would have been secured by a drawbar. Most of the doorways are rebated, for an outward-opening iron gate or yet, which would have been secured from the inside using iron chains. The doorway was commonly given protective cover by a box machicolation on the parapet above. Later door surrounds often incorporate a gunloop, set roughly at stomach level for maximum impact. Inside, the small lobby was covered by a murder hole in its ceiling, or by gunloops from adjoining rooms. The typical stair is a stone spiral rising in one corner of the tower. More complex arrangements are encountered in some larger towers, where straight flights rise for part of the way before giving way to spiral stairs. The quality of workmanship to these helical stairs varies; some are rather crude, but the cut stonework at Kilcrea and Castle Richard is notably refined. The spaciousness and gentle ascent of the stair at Togher, with its central drum, is unparalleled in Cork.
Each floor generally had a single principal chamber, with perhaps a smaller chamber adjoining the staircase as well as mural chambers containing garderobes or store rooms. The chamber on the top floor has often been styled the great hall, a term now disputed; instead, these rooms should perhaps be regarded as presence chambers reserved for family and guests, with a separate “hall” provided within an adjoining walled or enclosed bawn. Some principal chambers, such as those at Kilcrea, Ballinacarriga and Cloghleigh (Kilworth), have ornate rere-arches to the windows, arcades to the end walls, and finely carved corbel courses. However, windows are on the whole generally little more than narrow lancets, those on the upper floor perhaps twin-light, set in lintelled or roughly arched embrasures.
Bartizans of square or circular plan are commonly provided at diagonally opposing corners, so that they cover all four sides of the tower. They generally rest on a single tier of corbels with machicolation drops between, from while missiles or guns could be deployed. The corbels are often crudely formed, the cut-stone pyramidal corbels at Blarney a noteable exception. Occasionally bartizans are placed midway up the tower, in which case they have stone roofs, and access from the second floor.
Given the size, geographical range and ethnic differences of Cork, it is understandable that there are regional variations in tower-house construction. In north Cork is a series of notably elegant towers with rounded corners, including Cloghleigh and Cregg (Fermoy). In the SW, the use of raised entrances to the [p. 15] living quarters and a ground-level door to a separate store is common among O’Mahoney and O’Driscoll castles. An unusual feature of a number of O’Donovan castles, at Raheen (Union Hall), Glandore and Castlehaven (Castletownshend, demolished), is the provision of an inclined gable-shaped gunloop in each wall of the tower which permitted a single defender to train a musket along the full length of the wall from a second floor chamber.
Towers built during the late C16 and early C17, such as Ballintoher (Clonakilty) and Togher, differ from their predecessors in a number of ways which look forward to the fortified houses that succeeded them. They lack vaults, and instead have timber floors throughout. The omission of vaults meant that fires could no longer be set on a hearth in the middle of a room, and consequently the houses had integral fires from the outset. The absence of vaults also allowed the walls to be thinner; a Ballynamona (Shanballymore) they are 1.3m thick, in comparison to 2.3 m at Castle Cooke (Kilworth). Larger windows became the norm, while garderobe chutes were abandoned in favour of the use of closet stools or commodes. Gunloops were now an integral feature, while bartizans continued to be provided they wre often for martial display rather than use.
For much of the medieval period, urban houses were generally of timber framed construction clad in wattle and daub, and thatched. Stone constructions in towns expressed wealth and status, often in the form of a three-or four- storey tower house. Examples survive at Youghal, Kinsale and Buttevant; others are known to have existed at Cork, Mallow, Carrigtwohill, Innishannon and Cloyne.”
p. 223. Sheila-na-gig above the door. … The first-floor carvings depict a figure and a number of rosettes, supposedly representing a mother and her children. The third-floor “hall” – sometimes referred to as a chapel – has thwin arches supporting the gable at the dais end. The carvings here are particularly noteworthy, displaying the Instruments of the Passion, a Crucifixion scene and panels of stylized leaves. [rather appropriately, this room was used for Catholic worship during the Penal era]. A further window, dated 1585, records the initials of Randal Muirhily (Hurley) and Catherine O’Cullane. This probably commemorates renovations rather than initial construction.
There is a Ballinacarriga castle also
http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/cork/ballinacarrriga/ballinacarriga.html
Ballinacarriga Castle, Map Reference: W288508 (1288, 0508)
Ballinacarriga Castle is a four-storey tower-house set high on a rock with the remains of the corner turret of a bawn close by. The entrance in the E wall leads to a vaulted lobby with a guardroom to the S and the main chamber straight ahead. A short flight of steps to the N leads to a spiral stairway in the NE corner. The eastern portion of the castle is occupied by 6 small chambers, one above the other. These may be entered from the main chambers at the first and second floors but otherwise they are accessible from the spiral stair. There are two wall bartizans entered from the second floor room which has a vaulted ceiling. The first floor has a fireplace and a decorated window. The spiral stairway rises to the top room and a straight mural stairway goes to roof level.
The top room has two windows decorated with scriptural subjects, including the Crucifixion and Instruments of the Passion. There are other decorative panels including the inscription 1585 R.M.C.C. (Randal Muirhily [Hurley] and his wife Catherine O Cullane).
https://www.castles.nl/ballynacarriga-castle
Ballynacarriga Castle lies on a rocky outcrop in the townland of Ballynacarriga, in County Cork in Ireland.
It is not exactly known when Ballynacarriga Castle was built. There is a commemoration year carved somewhere in the castle which reads 1585. But it could also have been built a century before. The year 1585 might also have been the year its then owner Randall Hurley was married with Catherine O’Cullane. The castle was forfeited by the Hurleys in 1654, and it passed to the Crofts.
The top floor was later used as a chapel up until the early 19th century.
Ballynacarriga Castle is a rectangular 4-storey tower house. There is a sheela-na-gig 10 meters high up on the east wall and a small ruined round tower which was part of the bawn.
A nice castle. When I visited, the tower was closed but I think it can be visited at other times. The site is freely accessible.
Irish Historic Houses 