Athcarne Castle, Duleek, Co Meath
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. 14. “An old tower-house with a three storey 5 bay later wing which is plain but for a battlemented porch and a rather thin turret. Now a ruin.”
Record of Protected Structures:
Athcarne Castle, townland: Athcarne, town” Duleek
late 16th C house with early 19thC castellated extensions.
Built by the De Bathes. Original castle is ruinous.
Not in national inventory
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 113. …In 1814 the seat of Henry Garnett.
https://curiousireland.ie/athcarne-castle-balrath-co-meath-1590/
This foreboding looking building is Athcarne Castle located in Balrath co. Meath. It was built for William Bathe in 1590. The Bathe family produced a number of well known legal and political personalities around the 16th and 17th century. It originally comprised of an Elizabethan tower house, a three storied mansion and a corner turret but was renovated around 1830 with the addition of a large three story turret. It lies just six miles from the site of the Battle of the Boyne and it is said that James II stayed here on the night before the event in 1690. The last occupant was James Gernon who lived there until the 1950’s when the building was partly demolished and has stayed in a state of dangerous ruin since. Legends about the castle include cries of dying soldiers heard at night and the spectre of a hanged soldier on the great oak tree adjacent. The most disturbing tale is a recent one by a local worker who claimed to have seen the face of “a demented girl with blood covered hands”!
http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/meath/athcarne/athcarne.html
Map Reference: O031647 (3031, 2647)
This is a 16th century four-storey tower-house with a ruined 19th century house attached. A spiral stairway rises within a projecting turret in the NW corner to roof level. There are some roof weepers but all crenellations have been removed except at the SW corner.
The tower is vaulted abover the ground floor and there are some excellent wicker-marks in the vaulting. There are at least two rooms at each level and the walls of the upper rooms have had lath and plaster finish. The three-storey 19th century house is stone-faced and brick-lined. It has a S porch with crenellations. There are remains of a two-storey extension on the N side. There is a turret at the SW corner and an armorial plaque on the S wall. This house replaces a late-16th century house on the same site and incorporates some of the stone.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2021/05/03/athcarne-2/
A Fine Past, A Sad Present
Alas, the dilapidated remains of Athcarne Castle, County Meath now indicate little of its distinguished history, which go back at least 900 years. The name of the place is thought to derive from either Ath Cairn (the Bridge/Fording Point at the Cairn) or Ard Cairn (High Cairn). Whichever is the case, this indicates that it was originally the site of a pre-Christian cairn, or burial mound: it may well be that the structure seen today rests on top of or adjacent to a cairn. For hundreds of years, the lands in this part of the country belonged to the Bathe family, descendants of Hugo de Bathe, and Anglo-Norman knight who, as his name explains, came from Bath and who arrived in Ireland with Hugh de Lacy in 1171. It may be that Hugo de Bathe built some kind of castle or defensive fort here but eventually this was succeeded by the tower house which still survives and constitutes the eastern portion of the building. Rising four storeys and presumably erected in the 15th or 16th century, the tower has large window openings on the upper levels which were clearly later than the original structure; those on the topmost floor are topped with stone mouldings and there is a buttress on the north-east corner.
Until the mid-17th century the Bathes were a prominent family in Ireland, with large landholdings in north County Dublin, where they built a number of other castles at places such as Drumcondra and Glasnevin. Three of them would serve as the country’s Lord Chief Justice while John de Bathe was Attorney General in 1564 and then Chancellor of the Exchequer 1577-86. Around 1590 his son William Bathe, a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and then married (as his second wife) Janet Dowdall (as her third husband) built what, from a surviving engraving, appears to have been an Elizabethan manor house onto the west side of the old tower house; it may well have been around this time that the latter’s windows were enlarged. The couple’s respective coats of arms can be seen on a slim tower on the south-west corner of the present building, seemingly having been moved to this location in the 19th century. Despite remaining Roman Catholic, the Bathes appear to have survived and held onto their estates until the outbreak of the Confederate Wars of the 1640s when, along with other landed families of the same faith, they rose in rebellion. And, like so many other landed families of the same faith, upon the arrival of the Cromwellian forces towards the close of the decade, they found themselves on the losing side. As a result, their considerable lands were forfeited and distributed to members of the English army, Athcarne being granted to one Colonel Grace. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the Bathes sought the return of their property, but were unsuccessful, since it was now granted to Charles II’s brother, James, Duke of York (the future James II). Following further appeals, the duke returned Athcarne and surrounding 1,200 acres on a 99 year lease at a peppercorn rent: the rest of their former lands he retained. When James II came to Ireland, it is claimed that he spent the night before the decisive Battle of the Boyne at Athcarne Castle, which was, after all, only rented to the Bathes. In any case, soon after the start of the following century, the family had gone, James II was in exile in France, and Athcarne passed into the hands of another family, the Somervilles who in turn rented it on a long lease to the Garnetts.
Athcarne Castle remained occupied by successive generations of Garnetts until the early 1830s when it was acquired by the Gernons, once more a family of Anglo-Norman origin (mentioned here recently, see Alms and the Man « The Irish Aesthete). It appears the Gernons were responsible for pulling down the Elizabethan manor house and replacing it with a new residence, the remains of which can still be seen. This is a castellated three-storey block originally two rooms’ deep. A modest, single-storey entrance porch was added on the south side (previously access to the building had been from the north). It was probably also around this time that the little tower in the south-west corner was constructed and the Bathe/Dowdall coats of arms, previously on the exterior of the manor house, placed there as a souvenir of the castle’s earlier history. By the last century, the Gernons, rather like their predecessors on the site, were in decline. The surrounding land was sold and finally in 1939 an auction of the contents was held; among the lots, apparently, was a bed dating from the 17th century, the bed in which James II had slept the night before the Battle of the Boyne. In May of that year, the Land Commission offered the castle and remaining 88 acres for sale. Left empty, the building was unroofed and left as a shell in the early 1950s and so it has remained ever since.
For more information about Athcarne Castle and its history, an invaluable source is Athcarne Castle | Facebook
https://meathhistoryhub.ie/houses-a-d/
Athcarne Castle is located just west of Duleek, on the Hurley river and near to the Nanny.
Athcarne consists of a medieval tower with a large nineteenth century extension. Athcarne Castle was originally built for William Bathe in 1590. Home to the Bathe and Gernon families it was lived in until the mid-twentieth century. The four storey tower house was renovated about 1830 and a large three storey extension and a thin turret tower were constructed. The tower house has a vaulted lower chamber with wicker markings on the ceiling. The three-storey nineteenth century house is stone-faced and brick-lined. There is a turret at the south west corner and an armorial plaque on the south wall. There was a great walled garden and yard. The rear entrance to the house is off the Duleek – Balrath road while the front entrance had a gate lodge.
Mathew de Bathe, who died in 1350, obtained a grant from Edward III, of the manor of Rathfeigh. The family held considerable lands at Drumcondra, Co. Dublin. Matthew’s descendant, James Bath, was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1547. His son, John, was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and died in 1586. His eldest son, William, was second Justice of the Common Pleas; but dying in 1599 without issue, the estates reverted to his next brother John, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who died in 1634. It was William who erected the house at Athcarne. William’s widow, Jenet Dowdall, erected three crosses in the memory of her late husband, William Bathe. She erected one at the western end of Duleek, one at entrance to Annesbrook House and one at Whitecross near the entrance to Athcarne.
John was succeeded by his eldest son James, who lost the property in the Cromwellian confiscations. His eldest son, Luke, was created a Baron when Charles II was restored to the throne but he had difficulty in having the estate restored to the family. In the end he was forced to accept a 99 year lease on his lands of Athcarne which amounted to 1200 acres but had to give up the family’s considerable estates in Dublin.
Sir Luke died in 1672, leaving an only son Sir Peter who died without issue. It was said that King James slept in the house and a bed was preserved in memory of the king. Sir Luke had three brothers who survived him but none were able to gain control of the family estates. The widows of Sir Luke and Sir Peter in 1693, gave possession to the Crown and in 1704 the property was sold to Mr. Somerville, woollen draper of Dublin. The Bathe family seem to have managed to stay on at Athcarne.
In 1832 Sir William Plunkett de Bathe lived there but the property was shortly after acquired by the Gernon family.
In 1837 Athcarne, the residence of James Gernon, was described as pleasantly situated on the Nannywater, a perfect specimen of the Elizabethan castellated style. It was described as a massive pile of building, with a still more massive keep defended by quadrangular towers; and the whole was formerly surrounded by a fosse.
Henry Chester Gernon, JP for Meath, was born in 1848, the son of James Gernon. In 1876 Henry C. Gernon is recorded as holding 734 acres in Meath and Louth while other members of the family held 257 acres in both counties. Colonel (later Major) Gernon commanded 5th Batt. Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the Boer War and died in 1908.
Major Gernon, had five in family, one boy went to Canada, a daughter married Mr. McCann of Staleen House. The castle was retained by the Major’s son, James Gernon and his two sisters, Helen and Constance. James regaled locals with tales of the Klondike gold rush. He was the last occupant of the castle which was partially demolished in the 1950s. King James’ bed, along with the skins of the last wolves to be killed in Ireland and many other items, were disposed of in the 1950s. After the division of the estate the roof was removed from the castle.
Irish Historic Houses 