Qualla: Carrigaphooca Castle

Carrigaphooca Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name does the work before you arrive. Carrigaphooca: the rock of the puca, the rock of the fairy or the ghost. The MacCarthy clansmen who raised this tower in the early 15th century chose a stranger foundation than most. They built it on top of a steep-sided pillar of limestone left behind by an Ice Age glacier, a roche moutonnee that rises sharply out of the otherwise quiet valley of the River Sullane. Six kilometres west of Macroom, in an area once called Gleann na n-Dearg, the Valley of the Reds, the tower still stands five storeys tall on its rock, glaring north toward Kerry and daring anybody to climb the cliff.

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrigaphooca Castle: Built for War, Not Comfort

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joebater at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The MacCarthys of Muskerry were one of medieval Ireland's great dynasties. They had lost large areas of mid-Cork to the Anglo-Norman de Cogans during the 13th century, and the 15th century was their long campaign to take it back. Carrigaphooca was a piece of that campaign. Some s...

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Image: Joebater at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Carrigaphooca Castle: Refuge from Kinsale

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1601, an army of Irish lords gathered around Kinsale to support a Spanish landing meant to break English power in Ireland. The battle ended in disaster for the Irish side. Among those who had backed the wrong horse was Cormac Teige McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney. With English f...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrigaphooca Castle: The Siege of 1602

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tadgie1, CC BY-SA 4.0. A year later, the tower changed sides. Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare, leader of one of the last Irish forces still resisting the English in the south, attacked Carrigaphooca with another member of the extended McCarthy family. The siege was protracted. The attackers eventually broke...

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Image: Tadgie1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrigaphooca Castle: Crows on the Sills

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tadgie1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The outer defensive walls fell into ruin centuries ago, leaving no traceable remains. Two corner bartizans, projecting stone boxes that allowed defenders to shoot down at attackers, still cling to opposite wall tops. The top floor may once have had a fireplace and proper living q...

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Image: Tadgie1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrigaphooca Castle: The Fairyland Below

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tadgie1, CC BY-SA 4.0. Carrigaphooca sits at the intersection of two older landscapes. Two fields east, the Carrigaphooca Stone Circle, a Neolithic ring of standing stones, marks ceremonies that ended four thousand years before the tower was built. To the west, a single tall standing stone called a gal...

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Image: Tadgie1 | CC BY-SA 4.0