Kanturk Castle
Map Reference: R383018 (1383,1018)
Kanturk Castle was built about 1601 by Dermod MacOwen MacDonagh. The English Privy Council ordered the building work to stop and MacDonagh was unable to borrow any more money from English moneylenders. So the castle was probably never completed. Dermot MacCarthy mortgaged the castle in 1641 to Sir Philip Perceval who afterwards took possession of it. It is a magnificent four-storey rectangular house with four large square corner flankers. There are bartizan corbels round the top of all the walls.
The house is well provided with good mullioned and transomed windows with small single-light windows at the lower level. It is aligned approximately N - S. There is a very fine doorway in the west wall at first floor level and another doorway in the east wall at the lower level.
The flanking towers have five storeys and three of them have three fireplaces; the other (NE) has none. There are seven fireplaces in the main building with an oven beside the fireplace in the east wall at the lowest level. There is no sign of a stairway. All levels of the flankers have doorways into the main house.
There is a good string course at each storey on the outside and most of the windows have a square hood mould.
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