Qualla: Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two buildings sit close together on the south bank of the Dripsey River, separated by a few hundred metres and about three hundred years. The older is Carrignamuck Tower House, a five-storey MacCarthy stronghold from the 1450s, scarred by Cromwellian cannon fire. The newer is Dripsey Castle - despite the name, an eighteenth-century country house, seven bays wide, three storeys tall, with a pedimented breakfront and a Venetian window. The Anglo-Norman Colthurst family built it to replace the medieval tower as the family seat. The Colthursts lived in the new house. The tower next door slowly weathered. Then one day in 1916 a son of the family gave an order in Dublin that destroyed the entire family's social position in their own parish.

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: The Tower and the Country House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Dripsey estate originally belonged to the MacCarthys. The fifteenth-century tower house at Carrignamuck was commissioned by Cormac McTeige MacCarthy, ninth Lord of Muskerry, and served as a residence for the tanist - the heir designated to succeed to nearby Blarney Castle. Af...

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: Sash Windows and a Venetian Light

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Architecturally the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes Dripsey Castle as a detached, seven-bay, three-storey country house with a central pedimented three-bay breakfront. A canted bay window projects from the southern side. A three-bay, two-storey, flat-roofed...

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: Marriages, Inheritance, and a New Surname

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Colthursts intermarried with other Cork Protestant families through the nineteenth century. John Colthurst of Dripsey Castle married Jane Bowen of Oak Grove, Carrigadrohid. Their granddaughter Peggy married Alfred Greer, who purchased part of the Dripsey estate when it was ad...

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: Easter Week, 1916

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. During the Easter Rising in Dublin in April 1916, Captain John Bowen-Colthurst of the Royal Irish Rifles ordered the shooting of three civilians under arrest at Portobello Barracks. The most prominent was Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, a pacifist, suffragist, and journalist who had ...

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Dripsey Castle, Carrignamuck: After the Colthursts

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. The O'Shaughnessy family - already owners of the nearby Dripsey Woollen Mills - bought the castle in 1922. The Irish Tourist Association survey of 1944 listed Dripsey Castle as the principal residence in the parish. The drawing room held a carved marble mantelpiece. The breakfast...

Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0