2015:292 - Anner Castle, Tipperary

Anner Castle is in the townland of Ballinamore, of Kilsheelan Parish, in South Tipperary. The present Neo-Gothic edifice was built in the 19th century, on the site of an earlier house marked Ballina House on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1843. There were no houses on the land at the time of the Down Survey of 1656. The land was bought by Ambrose Mandevillle in 1683 and stayed in the family for 330 years. Valuation Office records from 1846 relate that all walls including the stable yard were completed but not all yet roofed.  It was described as of first quality stonework and was of recent construction. The famine in the interim may have delayed completion, but the building also provided work in those bleak times. The castle as it stands today was certainly well completed by 1858, when the pioneering photographer of the day, Dr William Despard Hempill captured it, from the south-east, resplendent with ivy almost at battlement level (see photo).

In 1876 the Valuation Office records show a change in name from Ballina House to Ballina Castle. It was burnt down in 1946 by the gardener who was deemed temporarily insane in the posthumous hearing.

Testing was carried out both within and to the rear of the castle. No archaeological features or finds were recovered other than the burnt remains of the some of the kitchen utensils and elements of the house fire which were not removed after the fire (such as bits of bed springs and some early fire extinguishers). Testing revealed a cobbled floor surface in Trenches 1 and 2 and a shallow stone-lined shallow pit in Trench 4 which possibly belong to the earlier phase of the building. The cobbles respect the west wall of the castle, and also run up to, not under the fireplace wall between rooms D and E which could havea also have belonged to the earlier phase of building. The wall between rooms C and D (kitchen and scullery) is of later build, largely of brick with shallow foundations and clearly abutting the south wall of the castle (Trench 3), thus later, and pertaining to the building of Anner Castle in the mid-19th century. The south-west corner of room E (Trench 1) is bonded, as is the corner of room H (Trench 6). The return of the north-west tower, at the junction of rooms G and H (Trench 7), also is bonded to the north wall of the castle, an indication of contemporaneity. The drain running north from the house is contemporary with the building of Anner Castle in the 19th century. There was no indication of any earlier castle on the site, as was suggested, by the different masonry in the south-west tower. Subsequent monitoring of the drainage channel around the perimeter showed a uniformity of footing throughout the castle, which may militate against the interpretation of the cobbling in the kitchen area belonged to the earlier house phase.  The castle is now re-roofed and stairs have been re-instated. It is well on the way to full habitability. 

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