County: Offaly Site name: KINNITY: Kinnity Castle
Sites and Monuments Record No.: OF036-044001–3 Licence number: 03E1964
Author: Sinéad Phelan, Margaret Gowan & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Castle - unclassified
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 620245m, N 705813m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.102508, -7.697682
This site is located within the grounds of Kinnitty Castle, Kinnitty, Co. Offaly. The Pain brothers built Castle Bernard in a Tudor/Gothic revival style in 1833. It has a three-storeyed façade, an impressive entrance front with gables and oriels and a corner castellated tower; it was built of blue-grey limestone. The gardens were exquisitely landscaped. The Annals of Clonmacnoise document the completion of a ‘Castle’ at Kinnitty in 1214. The castle was built as part of a sub-infeudation undertaken by Theobald Walter, who was granted Munster in AD 1185.
The assessment was carried out on 15 and 16 January 2004 as a result of a ‘further information request’ by Offaly County Council in relation to the proposed development at Kinnitty Castle. At the location of the proposed new bedroom wing the remains of a wall, a cobbled surface and a linear cut feature were identified in Trench 1. These features are associated with activity surrounding the 19th-century Kinnitty Castle.
At the location of the proposed conference centre, Trenches 2 and 3, a linear ditch feature was identified. There were no datable finds associated with this feature and, as it is within the 19th-century ‘walled garden’ in the grounds of Kinnitty Castle, it is likely that this feature is associated with a period of landscaping. No other features of archaeological significance were identified during this assessment.
27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2
