1180s – Irish Historic Houses

Ardfinnan Castle, Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary

*Ardfinnan Castle, County Tipperary, August 2023.*

Mark Bence-Jones. 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. 9. “(Prendergast/LGI1937 supp) An old tower house above the River Suir, with a three storey gable-ended Georgian wing and also a three storey battlemented tower added in C19, when the gable of the Georgian wing was stepped and the old tower was given impressive Irish battlements.”

https://archiseek.com/2012/ardfinan-castle-cahir

1860s – Ardfinnan Castle, Cahir, Co. Tipperary

Ardfinnan Castle was originally built circa 1186 to guard the river crossing on the River Suir, seven miles west of Clonmel. It was preserved as a military stronghold until the year 1649, when it was dismantled by Oliver Cromwell. Described as semi-ruined in 1861, it received a Victorian “restoration” when a three storey battlemented tower was added and the original castle received Irish battlements. Over the years it has been extended into a modest country house.

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=A

A building that has been added too and altered since the 15th century. Occupied by James Prendergast at the the time of Griffith’s Valuation, held from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and valued at £13. In 1894 Slater notes it as a residence of Mrs. Prendergast. Still in use as a residence.   https://www.britainirelandcastles.com/Ireland/County-Tipperary/Ardfinnan-Castle.html

Ardfinnan Castle is situated on rocky slope overlooking the River Suir valley eight miles west of Clonmel. It has views north west to the Galtee Mountains and south to the Knockmealdown Mountains.

The castle is rectangular in shape with square towers at the corners, and a fortified entrance gateway. The castle is on high ground near the old bridge over the River Suir. It was originally built to guard the river crossing in Ardfinnan. The old bridge with its 14 arches makes an interesting approach to the castle.

Facilities

The castle is privately owned and not open to the public.

History

Ardfinnan Castle was built around 1185 for Prince John (who later became King John of England). In the 1640s in was occupied by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. It was held as a military post until 1649, when it was destroyed by Cromwell’s forces. The castle was partially restored and rebuilt in the 18th century and 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardfinnan_Castle

Ardfinnan Castle, is the sister castle of Lismore Castle and was built circa 1185 to guard the river crossing at Ardfinnan (Ard Fhíonáin in Irish) in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is situated on the River Suir, seven miles west of Clonmel. The castle is currently privately owned and is not open for public viewing.

The Anglo-Norman castle is positioned on a large rocky incline and it looks out over the Suir valley with the Knockmealdown Mountains to the south, and the Galtee Mountains to the northwest. The castle is a parallelogram in shape with square battlements at the corners and a fortified entrance gateway.

The castle was built in 1185 by King John of England, then Lord of Ireland, during his first expedition to Ireland. To guard the northern border of Waterford, John’s father Henry II of England proposed Ardfinnan and Tybroughney on the river Suir, with Lismore on the Blackwater as key positions to erect castles. Most importantly, Ardfinnan would secure a passage from the Anglo-Norman-occupied southern sea-board into central Ireland. John arrived in Waterford in April 1185, after which he soon granted the Cambro-Norman knight Maurice de Prendergast with the Manor of Ardfinnan, in which he was tasked with the construction of Ardfinnan Castle and to defend it as its governor. 

In opposition to John’s construction of the castles, Lismore Castle was taken by surprise in an attack by the Irish, and its governor, Robert de Barry, was slain along with his entire garrison. King of Munster Donal O’Brien, King of Connacht Rory O’Conner and King of Desmond Dermod MacCarthy, now headed for Ardfinnan. Opposite the imposing castle and on the other side of the river, it became aware to O’Brien that he would not be able to take it by force. Indicating retreat, he turned back only to be pursued by the small garrison of knights holding Ardfinnan Castle, which for O’Brien would play the advantage. He swiftly turned back towards Ardfinnan and surrounded the now exposed knights, slaying a large portion of them and subsequently taking Ardfinnan Castle. After this and further successive defeats against the Irish Kings, John’s original force of 300 men was decimated, and by December of that same year, 1185, he was summoned back to England by his father. 

The castle was promptly retaken and would continue to regularly change hands between the vying Anglo-Normans, until it was handed over to the Knights Templar, and later granted to the Knights Hospitaller. While the Hospitallers protected this important pass between Cashel and Lismore, they constructed the castle’s surviving circular keep in the early 13th century. 

On Saturday 2 February 1650 major general Henry Ireton, who was accompanying Oliver Cromwell in his conquest of Ireland, had neither the boats or sufficient weather in order to make a crossing of the river Suir with his army and subsequently headed for the bridge at Ardfinnan to gain another crucial pass over the river Suir, second to the pass at Carrick. In view of taking hold of the strategically placed castle which guarded this crossing from high above, he waited until around four o’clock the next morning to attempt a siege. Defending the castle from the Parliamentarians with a small force of soldiers was David Fitzgibbon (the White Knight), Governor of Ardfinnan Castle for Charles II. With cannons placed on a hill opposite the castle, Ireton bombarded it’s once impenetrable walls until there was a large breakthrough after about 8 shots and then proceeded to kill about thirteen of the out-guard and lost only two of his men with about ten wounded. After this the castle was promptly surrendered to the New Model Armywho would use it as a garrison throughout their time in Ireland. Fitzgibbon was spared his life for his swift surrender of the castle, but subsequently lost his lands at Ardfinnan and was transplanted to Connacht in 1653. Guns, ammunition and other supplies arriving at Youghal would be brought over the river Blackwater at the pass at Cappoquin and then finally over the river Suir at Ardfinnan to reach the rest of the army in Tipperary. With the end of the Cromwellian campaign of Ireland, the leaving Parliamentarian troops slighted Ardfinnan castle which partially left it in ruins.

In 1795 with the threat of invasion during the French Revolutionary Wars, the castle was once again occupied as a military garrison, with British Army fencible units. Despite being in ruins, the position of the castle still commanded over a chief pass on the river Suir and it would be used along with the rest of the Ardfinnan and Neddans area to hold a British Army summer training camp, with reserves ready against French invasion. Training in firing and marching were essential in forging these militia into an effective military force. Although initially established as a temporary encampment for the summer months, it became a permanent camp in March 1796 by the orders of John Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden, which amounted a force of 2,740 mainly Protestant soldiers. The camp was disbanded by 1802.

In the early 19th century, 15 acres with Ardfinnan Castle were reinstated to the descendants of Maurice de Prendergast, who were now descended of the Prendergasts’ of Newcastle. The castle’s tower-house received a Victorian restoration around 1846, with the addition of adjoining buildings and was essentially turned into a country house. It was sold out of the hands of the Anglo-Irish gentry by the Royal Navy Admiral, Sir Robert Prendergast, KBC in the early 1920s to a Mulcahy of the prosperous Ardfinnan Woollen Mills which the castle overshadows, on what was formerly the site of the Prendergast’s flour mill. Mr. Mulcahy made further restorations to the house by 1929.^[2] The latest addition is the three-storey gable-ended wing, likely added during the 1930s.” https://www.libraryireland.com/articles/ArdfinnanCastle/index.php http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=TS&regno=22126001

Detached irregular-plan multi-period country house, comprising surviving south circuit of medieval bawn with square-plan tower house built c.1450 at south-east angle and with early thirteenth-century keep at north-east angle, and having eighteenth and nineteenth-century additions. Tower house is four-storey with two-bay side elevations and has four-bay three-storey block of c.1750 added to north side, having slightly advanced west bay, with further two-storey block to west presenting one-bay to front elevation and two to rear, and with lower canted single-bay two-storey entrance link between these later blocks, link and west block being built c.1885. Link block echoed in rear elevation by angular one-bay three-storey block. Twelve-bay single-storey flat-roofed block to east side east block, running on northeast to southwest axis. Pitched slate roofs with stepped crenellations to tower house and simpler crenellations elsewhere. Lines of dripstones to south and east elevations of tower house, and moulded course to base of slightly projecting parapets of projecting part of main later block and to west block. Crowstep parapet to east elevation of four-bay block, simple crenellations to west end and stepped battlements to western block. Rubble limestone chimneystack to four-bay block, with brick quoins, brick and rendered elsewhere, with cast-iron rainwater goods. Single-storey block has parapet with sloping coping and stepped crenellations to centre and ends, with moulded string course to base of parapet. Coursed rubble and dressed limestone front elevation to four-bay block, rubble limestone to east elevation of tower house and rendered to other elevations, and snecked dressed limestone to front elevation of west block. Square-headed window openings, having render label-mouldings to south and west elevations of tower house and front and rear elevations of west end of four-bay block and of west block. Pointed single-light and double-light pointed windows to south and east elevations of tower house, with chamfered limestone surrounds, ogee-headed window and pointed window with hood-moulding to west elevation and slit window to east elevation. Chamfered limestone surrounds to east elevation and east end bays of front elevation of four-bay block, with timber sliding sash one-over-one pane windows, some double. Chamfered limestone surrounds to west block. Timber casement windows to east end of front elevations of blocks and metal casements elsewhere. Mullioned timber casement windows to single-storey block. Pointed-arch entrance door opening with studded timber battened door and metal strap hinges. Ruined cylindrical keep of early thirteenth-century date, with semi-circular staircase annex to north-east of site. Rendered staircases to stepped gardens. Octagonal-plan rendered piers with decorative wrought-iron gates, and rendered and crenellated rubble limestone walls to site entrance. 

Appraisal

This multi-period structure, positioned on a height overlooking the village and the bridge, dominates Ardfinnan, and is visible from a distance. A castle (motte?) at the site is said to have been erected by King John in 1185, and its position would have been strategically advantageous, commanding a crossing of the River Suir. The later structures at the site imitate the earlier ones through use of a castellated style with some narrow vertical window openings, a pointed doorway, and also the crenellations which give this building its distinctive roofline. The craftsmanship and skill involved in the design and execution of the finely crafted gate piers and gates are evident in their form and detailing, and are entirely typical of the high status accorded to the entrances of country houses in Ireland.