Clougheast Castle

Map Reference: T120055 (3120, 1055)



The earliest references to a castle at Clougheast date only from the seventeenth century. The tower is of four floors with a loft under the ground-floor vault and an attic complete to stepped crenellations. There are good quoins and the walls are battered at the base. The pointed doorway in the north wall is protected by a good machicolation and a murder hole. The castle is vaulted above the first floor. A mural stairway rises to the left of the doorway to the first floor. It continues in the east wall to above the vault where there are another three storeys plus attic. There is a good fireplace at the third floor and part of the top storey is now a dove cot.



There is a secret room within the vaulting which may be entered through the floor of a small chamber in the south wall. There is a garderobe in the west wall above the vault. The stairway continues to rise in the south and west walls and emerges at the allure where there are good roof weepers. The ground floor has good deeply-recessed windows and there is a “coal-hole” under the stairs. Attached to the north wall of the tower is a fine three-storey house. The lower storey of this has a good batter and the upper portions may be 18th century. The doorway in the west wall has a square hood mould and may be 16th century. In the yard is a bake-house and the well uses a millstone as a cover.

This was the condition of the castle as I observed it in 1984. On my return in 2008 I found that the castle had been renovated and both the old house and the stable-yard had been rebuilt. I was unable to examine it closely so here are three recent distant photos.