Qualla: Carrignacurra Castle

Carrignacurra Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Fensome, CC BY-SA 2.0. In September 2020, archaeologists digging at the base of Carrignacurra Castle pulled a silver coin from the soil. It was a groat - a thick medieval silver piece - and it bore the face of Henry III of England. It had been struck in 1270. The castle itself had been thought to date from the 15th or 16th century, perhaps two hundred years younger than the coin. Either a much earlier stronghold once stood on this site, or someone in the 13th century had lost a coin on a riverbank that someone else would later choose as a place to build. A second silver coin came up minted under Edward IV in the 1470s. Carrignacurra had been guarded by people, plundered, defended and abandoned for longer than its standing walls suggested. The dig is still finding things.

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Image: Richard Fensome | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignacurra Castle: Rock of the Weir

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Fensome, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name comes from Carraig na Choradh - the Rock of the Weir. The castle was built to defend a ford across the River Lee about 1.5 kilometres east of Inchigeelagh village, on the historic route between Macroom and Dunmanway. The O'Leary clan put up three tower houses around Inch...

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Image: Richard Fensome | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignacurra Castle: Captured, Forfeited, Restored

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The castle's seventeenth century is a sequence of changes of ownership written in war. In 1602 it was captured by Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare during his great march north - the last stand of Gaelic Munster before final English conquest. It was forfeited in 1641 after the Catholic ...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignacurra Castle: Redan, Bartizan, Murder Hole

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Interface-Architect, CC BY-SA 4.0. Architecturally Carrignacurra is a four-storey rectangular tower house, 15.2 metres tall to where the battlements have been lost. The most striking defensive feature is the redan - a pointed triangular stone projection rising from the ground at the southeast corner, equipped with...

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Image: Interface-Architect | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrignacurra Castle: A Castle Coming Back

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Carrignacurra was listed for sale in 2016 - Country Life magazine ran a piece about a 195,000-pound castle complete with murder hole - and the current owners are slowly bringing it back from ruin. Stonework around the gun loops, windows and door surrounds has been repaired. The l...

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