Location: Carlow Map
Constructed: 1207- 1213
Open: weekdays only
Carlow Castle that is now added to Ireland's National Monument of Ireland was constructed between 1207- 1213 by William Marshall on a site of the previous citadel. Little is known of the previous citadels on the site of Carlow Castle other than existence of the motte (mound) constructed by Hugh de Lacy in the 1180s. Today unfortunately only western wall of Carlow Castle survives. The rest of the castle was destroyed by human stupidity. Carlow Castle was abandoned for several decades then someone came out with a bright idea of establishing a lunatic asylum on its grounds. To speed up the process of expanding windows in the new hospital gunpowder was used. Apparently workers assumed that there is no such thing as too much of explosives and overdid with the charges. Explosion of 1814 that was carried out by "a ninny-pated physician of the name of Middleton" brought down large portion of Carlow Castle. However whatever remains of it is still pretty impressive with magnitude and design. The access to the fortifications is through Corcoran's Mineral Water Factory.
The castle is a separate donjon of four bays, four walls and
three floors with a frame of cylindrical towers. It was built of
horizontally laid rubble masonry with long narrow openings, with
mullioned Windows, cross loops and walls with loopholes. Initially,
the donjon was two-story, the third floor was built in the XV
century. The Eastern part of the castle was undermined and destroyed
in 1814. The Western wall, with its frame of cylinder-shaped towers,
survives to this day for its entire length. The castle was almost
entirely built of limestone. It is located on an artificially
flattened top of a rocky hill at the confluence of two rivers — the
barrow and the Burren.
History
The donjon was a three-story rectangular structure with cylindrical
towers at the corners. The castle may have been built between 1207
and 1213 by William Marshal on the site of the Motte and Bailey
built in the 1180s by Hugh de Lacy. It may be one of the earliest
examples of four-tower donjons in Britain or Ireland. The entrance
to the ground floor to the North and the passage to all floors with
wood-paneled floors went through a stone staircase in the thickness
of the Western wall. In 1306 ownership of the castle passed into the
hands of the crown, and then donated to the Earls of Norfolk, who
maintained the castle until confiscation in 1537. James Fitzgerald
captured it in 1494, it was then taken by Thomas Fitzgerald in 1535
and changed hands several times until it was bought by Donagh
O'brien, Earl of Tormond in 1616. The castle fell during the United
wars in Ireland in 1642. That year, a detachment from the Earl of
Ormond's army rescued 500 starving English prisoners from the
castle. The castle was later returned to the Ormonds after being
liberated by Henry Ayrton in 1650. It was later passed to the
Hamilton family.
In 1813, the Hamilton family leased the castle to physicist Dr.
Philip parry Price Middleton, who spent £ 2,000 in an attempt to
make it habitable as a lunatic asylum. On February 13, 1814, the
doctor, trying to create an underground corridor, used explosive
powder, which led to the destruction of the Eastern wall and the
fall of the Eastern towers and adjacent walls. The masonry
subsequently fell apart and was pulled apart.
Excavation
The area of the castle was first excavated in 1996 by a team of
archaeologists led by Dr O'connor of the Irish Civil service. In
1997, the autumn journal Archaeology Ireland published the results
of the doctor's findings. Eight-week excavations took place in
may-July, the focus of the work was made to clarify the interior
decoration of the tower donjon. Finding the remains of a series of
holes in the rounded ditches running under the walls of the donjon
and their subsequent Dating was an important result. The remains of
seed drying furnaces were found to the North, also found under the
site where the Western wall of the donjon was originally. It seems
that they belong to the same time with holes in the ditches,
trenches. These features have been interpreted as depicting the
remains of an earlier castle whose defences and structures were made
of earth and timber. A new interpretation of historical sources says
that this initial wooden castle was built in the early 1180s by Hugh
de Lacy for John de Clahall.
The architecture of the donjon and analysis of available historical
sources indicate that the castle was laid around 1210 by order of
William Marshal the elder, and its completion lasted for years. At
the beginning of the construction of the donjon, the hilltop was
cleared of most of the fortifications and buildings of the wooden
castle inclusive. The donjon had no Foundation, and was built on an
artificially created, flattened surface of the earth. Very little
evidence of the castle's seizures remained unaffected during the
excavations.