County: Kildare Site name: JIGGINSTOWN CASTLE, Jigginstown
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 19:33 Licence number: 96E0132
Author: Linzi Simpson, c/o Margaret Gowen and Co. Ltd.
Site type: House - 17th century
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 687612m, N 719024m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.214403, -6.688257
Assessment was carried out in June 1996 in advance of the laying of the gas-pipe along the Newbridge Road, where it passed to the north of Jigginstown Castle. The castle, largely extant, is a seventeenth-century red brick mansion and is located less than 5m from the roadside (on the south side). It was reputedly begun in 1636–7 by Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford (and lord deputy of Ireland from 1633 to 1640), and was apparently left unfinished and never inhabited. A large sunken garden to the south of the mansion is surrounded by a flat rampart or bank which enclosed the castle on the north and south sides. The later road and the eighteenth-century canal (on the north side of the road) cut through this enclosed area.
During the assessment a continuous trench was opened up along the line of the pipe on the north side of the road (i.e. cutting through the enclosed area). This trench was between 0.95m and 1.3m in depth and 0.85m wide. However, it was apparent that the road level had been built up in relatively modern times with an infill deposit of stone and clay which produced very modern pottery. The original ground surface, a light yellow clay, lay at 1.3m below existing ground level.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd. Rathmichael, Co. Dublin
