2006:1007 - CLOGARALT, Kilkenny

Test-trenches were dug here in January 2006. The site is on a plateau on a bend in the River Barrow at a height above it overlooking a wood. It contains the site of a castle, KK033–019. Immediately north of the site of the castle marked on the map is the remains of a ruined house with a ruined tower attached. This was formerly site KK033–018, denoted as a post-medieval folly, but has currently been delisted. The owners wish to build in front of the ruined house, adjacent to the postulated ‘site of castle’ referred to on both first- and second-edition OS maps.

A total of eight trenches were opened. No traces of the castle or any other archaeological features were exposed during the testing. The stone fort of Gerald Kavanagh, built around the year 1500 (from whence the name Cloch Ghearailt derives), no longer survives. Later writers may have confused the present remains of the 17th/18th-century farm complex, or the later folly, as remains of the older stronghold. It is significant that a Patrick Kavanagh was still occupying a large house in the area of Clogaralt by the time of Griffith’s Valuation in 1850. It is possible that the later building complex utilised the stone, if not the actual site, of the castle. The farm complex is derelict, with the tower fairly well preserved, and the wall which joins it to the farmhouse has two buttresses and is in better order than the house itself. No roofs survive in the ruins. Perhaps this part of the site should be ‘relisted’?

7 Bayview, Tramore, Co. Waterford