Qualla: Carrignamuck Tower House

Carrignamuck Tower House: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The MacCarthys built a chain of tower houses across County Cork in the fifteenth century, fortified residences that stretched westward beyond Macroom like a string of stone outposts. Carrignamuck is one of the few that survives. Five storeys, L-shaped, with a slate roof retrofitted in 1866 and a wooden front door that arrived at the same time, it sits two kilometres northwest of Dripsey village on private land. The cannon damage from 1650 is still visible. So is the murder-hole on the first floor, a vertical shaft through which defenders could drop unpleasant surprises on anyone breaking through the entrance below. The tower house is closed to the public. From the public road you can still see why Lord Broghill spent a morning shelling it.

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignamuck Tower House: Cormac Láidir, the Strong

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Local tradition holds that Carrignamuck was originally Carrig Cormac, named for Cormac McTeige MacCarthy - known as Láidir, meaning the Strong - who succeeded as ninth Lord of Muskerry in 1449 and died in 1494. He was also the founder of Blarney Castle a few kilometres east. The ...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignamuck Tower House: A Less Romantic Name

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Spircle at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not everyone accepts Carrig Cormac as the original name. The historian O'Donoghue, writing in 1986, offered an earthier theory: that Carrignamuck means roughly the rock of the pigs, and that the name comes from a nearby location where pigs were customarily slaughtered to supply b...

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

Carrignamuck Tower House: Cromwell's Guns at Meeshal Hill

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1650, near the end of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Lord Broghill - Roger Boyle, first Earl of Orrery, leading a troop of Cromwellian soldiers - took up a position on nearby Meeshal Hill and bombarded Carrignamuck. The tower was a MacCarthy seat, and the MacCarthys had ...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignamuck Tower House: The Murder-Hole and the Garderobe

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Inside Carrignamuck, the medieval defensive imagination is still legible floor by floor. The ground floor holds a lobby, a main chamber with a fireplace, and a smaller side chamber. The first floor adds a garderobe - the medieval latrine, simply a stone shaft to the outside - and...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Carrignamuck Tower House: From MacCarthy Seat to Private Property

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1580, during the Second Desmond Rebellion, Donyll McTeige MacCarthy - tanist of Muskerry and brother of Sir Cormac McTeige of Blarney Castle - was living at Carrignamuck when he was injured in a skirmish between the Muskerry MacCarthys and Sir James Fitzgerald of Desmond. He d...

Read more: Carrignamuck Tower House on Qualla

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0