Constance Louisa Adams

The town of Carlow, Catherlough or Catherlogh, is situated on the banks of the Barrow, five and a half miles south-by-west of Castledermot near the junction of the above river with the Burren. The name signifies “the city on the lake,” but the sheet of water from which it derived its name has disappeared.

The castle stands on a slight eminence to the west of the town on the east bank of the river, where it commanded the ford.

The present ruins consist of two round towers, and the western wall, which measures about 105 feet in length and some 70 feet in height. One of the towers is joined to this structure, and a small portion of the north and south walls adhere to both turrets respectively.

The doors were remarkably low and narrow, and light was admitted almost entirely by loopholes.

In Thomas Dineley’s quaint diary he states that the fortress was built of freestone, and a picture in the same work represents it with gables and a high-pitched roof. It is flanked by round towers and has many tall chimneys. It appears to be surrounded by a low battlemented wall, and to have numerous little out-houses.

Like so many castles in Ireland, local tradition ascribes its erection to King John, but Eva, Strongbow’s wife, Isabel, their daughter, Hugh le Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk, and Bellingham, Lord Deputy of Ireland, have been mentioned by other authorities. Ryan, in his history of Carlow, deals with the likelihood of each claim, and thinks that it was most probably built by Hugh de Lacy. He is said to have erected it about 1180, but the architecture is rather that of the beginning of the thirteenth century.

The castle is mentioned in the charter of William, Earl Marshal.

In 1283 we find the repairing of the old hall, kitchen, and tower among the accounts of Roger le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, in whose possession it then was. Among the items of expenditure are 700 nails and canvas, which were probably for the roofing of the great hall, which was covered with wooden shingles, and seems to have been difficult to keep in repair.

CARLOW CASTLE.

Carlow Castle was at this time the centre of government. The courts were held in the hall mentioned, and the Exchequer House was probably situated in one of the towers. The income of the lordship was £750 a year.

After all this expenditure, however, when the Earl’s possessions passed to the Crown in 1306, the castle and hall were so ruined that no value was placed upon them.

J. de Bonevill, of his Majesty’s Castle of Carlow, was appointed seneschal of Carlow and Kildare in 1310 to put down the robberies and outrages in the country.

It is stated that the castle was seized in 1397 by Donald MacArt Kavanagh, the MacMorrough, but the authority is not considered very reliable.

In 1494 James Fitzgerald, brother to the Earl of Kildare, having gone into rebellion, seized the castle and hoisted his standard on its battlements. Sir Edward Poynings marched to Carlow, and after a siege of ten days recovered the fortress.

Carlow Castle was in the hands of Thomas, 10th Earl of Kildare, better known as the “Silken Thomas,” during his rebellion in 1535. After his imprisonment in 1537 Lord (James) Butler, eldest son of the Earl of Ossory, appealed to the Crown for compensation for having defended the Castles of Carlow and Kilkea, “standing on the marches,” close to Irish territory. He was granted his expenses, and appointed constable of both castles.

At the same time the Deputy wrote to the Lord Privy Seal advising him to let the King keep the “manors of Carlagh, Kylea, and Castledermont” in his hands to prevent Lord Ossory and his son from becoming too powerful.

Sir Robert Hartpole applied for the custodianship of the fortress in 1567, it being at that time in possession of Frances Randall, widow of its late keeper.

Rory Oge O’More, Chieftain of Leix, burned the town and Sir Robert Hartpole made a sally from the castle with fifty men and released Harrington and Cosby, who were his prisoners, but O’More escaped in the dark.

Oueen Elizabeth desired the Lord Deputy to exchange some of the crown lands with Henry, Earl of Kildare, for the castle and lands of Carlow in 1589. During the unfortunate Essex’s rule in Ireland, in 1598 to 1600 the Queen’s warders held the fortress, but the Kavanaghs laid the surrounding country waste.

By the State Papers of 1604 the manor of Carlow was granted to Donagh, Earl of Thomond, with the exception of the castle, of which, however, he and his son were made constables. The following is taken from a document setting forth the conditions of the grant:—

“In all works made within the castle, the inhabitants of Carlow are to find six workmen or labourers daily, during the said work, at their own expense; also each tenant and cottager to weed the demesne corn yearly for three days, and a woman out of every house in Carlow to bind the sheaves for one day; each tenant and cottager to cut wood for the use of the castle for three days in summer, and each of them having a draught horse to draw the wood to the castle for three days, also to draw the corn out of the fields to the area of the said castle for three days; to give one cartload of wood, and one truss of straw at Christmas and Easter.”

Shortly after this the castle and bawn was granted to Sir Charles Wilmot.

Five hundred English were besieged in the castle in 1642, and were in a starving condition when relieved by Sir Patrick Wemys, who had been despatched to their relief by the Earl of Ormond. The rebels burned the town and fled at his approach.

In 1647 the King’s garrison was so hard pressed that the Earl of Ormond borrowed £60 for its relief, and forwarded it by Major Harman, but the fifty men who came to reinforce the garrison could not get in, as the stronghold was closely invested. The siege lasted about a month, and then the castle surrendered.

In Dr. Jones’ diary he states that the Cromwellian army arrived before the castle on the 18th of March, 1649. That the garrison of two hundred men refused to surrender it until the battery played on the place, and preparations were made for storming.

The next day the castle was surrendered, and two companies left to garrison it. The officers in command being Colonel Hewson, Sir T. Jones, and Colonel Shelburn.

Again we learn that Ireton arrived to take the castle on July 2, 1650, and that he spent the whole day in preparing for the attack. The troops encamped on the Queen’s County side of the river, the field still being pointed out. They had to erect a temporary bridge of ropes, hurdles and straw to cross the river, and the soldiers passed over one by one.

In Edmund Ludlow’s “Memoirs” he describes the place as “a small castle, with a river running under its walls,” and ascribes its importance to the fact of the neighbourhood being in sympathy with the garrison.

Just before sunset Ireton sent a letter to the governor offering terms to the defenders if they surrendered. The officer he sent returned to say Ireton should have an answer the next morning.

Accordingly, Captain Bellew sent a courteous reply to him asking for a truce of three days, so that he might communicate with the Bishop of Dromore. This was granted, and Ireton went on to Waterford, leaving Sir Hardress Waller in command.

After a short cannonade he took the town, and the castle surrendered upon articles. The garrison received a safe convoy to Lea Castle, and a pass of ten days to reach Athlone.

In Carte’s “Life of Ormond,” he attributes the castle’s loss to treachery, but except in a local tradition this does not appear.

It is said that the garrison running short of water sent an old woman to the river to fetch some, but that she was taken prisoner by some of the soldiers, and brought to the hostile camp. She was promised her life and a reward if on the following night she would show by a torch on the battlements the position of the stairway where the walls were thinnest. The legend runs she fulfilled the conditions and that, the cannonade at once beginning, she was the first to lose her life through her own treachery.

The manor passed from the Earl of Thomond’s family, on account of an unredeemed mortgage, to a Mr. Hamilton, M.P., who, in 1729, brought his case before Parliament for having been deprived of the castle yard during the time of privilege.

The castle was leased in 1814 to a Dr. Middleton. This gentleman intended to convert it into a lunatic asylum, and endeavoured to enlarge the windows and lessen the thickness of the walls by the then little known process of blasting. The results were disastrous. One morning, at about nine o’clock, while the workmen were fortunately at breakfast, the huge pile began slowly to totter to its fall.

An eye-witness who had time to escape from the threatened destruction said: “After viewing the portentous and amazing nodding of the towers, the immense pile gradually disparted into vast masses, which broke with difficulty into fragments less mighty.”