2005:529 - SEATOWN EAST: Seatown Castle, Dublin

Monitoring took place in August 2005 during groundworks associated with the conversion to a dwelling of a two-storey barn attached to the west side of Seatown Castle, a late medieval tower-house at Seatown East, Swords. The buildings at the time of the Civil Survey, 1654–6, were described as ‘a small old Castle & an old hall adjoyning (both Thatcht) a Barne & Stable Thatcht’. A survey by the writer in 1998 identified four principal phases of construction. Of the tower-house, only the vaulted ground floor survives, to which a first floor was added in the 19th century. A long single-storey house with large brick-framed windows was attached to the west wall of the castle in the early modern period. This was altered and converted into a barn, with the addition of an open-plan loft, probably when the present Seatown House was built in c. 1900.

An assemblage of mid- to late 18th-century pottery recovered during monitoring gave a secure date for the house on the west side of the castle. A glazed roof ridge tile may have come from the castle or the old hall, of which no trace was seen. Limited excavation under the site of a concrete water tank against the north wall of the tower-house uncovered a very rough stony surface. Fragments of pantile and lead window cames from deposits on the stones possibly relate to the demolition of the hall and the upper floors of the tower-house.

6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Co. Meath