2006:928 - ATHY: The White Castle, Kildare

The assessment was requested as part of a planning application to Kildare County Council for construction of a mixed-use development. The proposed development site is located within the zone of archaeological potential for the historic town and is within the curtilage of protected structure IP021, the White Castle.

The first mention of a tower on the bridge was in a petition from 1417 that notes that Sir John Talbot had recently built a new tower on the bridge of Athy. A tower is again mentioned in writings from 1515 and its building/rebuilding credited to Gearóid Mór in 1506 (Bradley 1986). Architectural survey confirms an early 16th-century date for the tower part of the current structure (B. Murtagh, pers. comm.), which begs the question that the earlier mention could refer to an earlier and perhaps different tower on the west side of the bridge.

The castle was repaired in 1536 by the Lord Deputy, Lord Leonard Grey, after Silken Thomas’s 1534–5 rebellion; the castle had been one of his strongholds. The Crown then seized it to be used by royal officials and it was garrisoned up until 1720. During the latter part of the 18th century, the northern wall of the tower was demolished as part of its conversion into a town jail and a three-storey addition was constructed here instead. The battlements of the original tower were also demolished and roof and chimneys added to create consistency and to tie the two different buildings together (Bradley, op. cit.). The base batter of the original tower, however, is still visible.

The building was used as a jail until 1830, when the jail was moved out to the Carlow road. The Royal Irish Constabulary then took it over as a barracks; it was also home to the policemen and their families. The backfilling of the millrace and building of the retaining wall evidenced in the 1874 OS map are likely to be the result of this habitation phase.

Testing of the proposed development site uncovered evidence that fits in with the known historical and cartographic evidence. It is clear that there were many phases of activity within a relatively short period of time, when the river bank was adapted to create an ‘island’ for industrial purposes and, that period of use over, reincorporated into the mainland. The reincorporation occurred in different phases, the backfilling of the millrace and retaining wall being the first reclamation activity, perhaps using the materials from the deconstruction of the millrace bank. Alternatively, the northern tail of the island may have been flooded with the removal of the weir. The arch discovered running beneath the road fully intact at the southern end of the test-trench closest to the castle clearly demonstrates the location of the millrace when in existence, the stone revetting in Trench 1 also adding the western edge of the millrace to the picture. It would seem that the structure of Castle Inn overlies the eastern bank and possibly the remains of the mill building. The patio immediately surrounding the castle to the west of Trench 6 may well preserve the remains of the ancillary mill buildings beneath it.

Five test-trenches were excavated by machine in the footprint of the then proposed development using a toothless bucket. The client intimated that there was to be a change in design and that the proposed development was to be more extensive. As a result of this, it was necessary to extend Trench 1 westwards and excavate an additional test-trench. This additional testing was undertaken on 1 July 2006. However, revised site plans for the proposed development were not received from the client until 30 August 2006, with the result that further testing is now required.

Reference
Bradley, J. 1986 The urban archaeological survey of Athy, Co. Kildare. Dublin.

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