Athenry is one of the most
notable medieval walled towns surviving in Ireland, owing
its foundation to Meiler de Bermingham who built his Castle
there c.1250. The great three-storey tower, surrounded by
defensive walls, is entered at first-floor level through an
unusual decorated doorway. Recently re-roofed, the interior
contains an audio visual room and exhibition. Access to
ground floor of Castle for people with disabilities.
The Castle was founded in the 13th century during the
Anglo-Norman colonization. Much of the medieval town wall
(1211) survives, together with the keep of the castle (1235)
and part of the Dominican priory (founded 1241), which was
specifically exempted from Henry VIII's dissolution of the
monasteries.
There was an Irish settlement at Athenry on the Clareen
river probably as far back as the seventh or eighth century.
In about 1235, Meiler de Bermingham founded a castle there,
surrounded by a roughly D-plan stone enclosure with round
towers on the corners. Inside the enclosure he raised a
low-level, half-type great tower, 16.4 x 10.3 metres (54 x
34 ft), of one story at first-floor level set over a
pronounced splayed plinth which surrounded a basement.
Within a generation, Meiler's son Piers raised the height of
the first floor, lifting its ceiling and walls, and
embellishing its entrance with the fine arched door at the
south-east end. This was reached from outside by a staircase
from the ground, probably of timber (a reproduction stair
exists there today), and it was protected by some sort of
fore-building. At the same time, he raised a banqueting hall
along the east wall of the enclosure, which used the
enclosure wall for its fourth side. Among the decorations
Piers inserted were narrow windows with trefoil heads, which
are some of the very few such castle windows anywhere in
Ireland (Ferns, Wexford, and Lea, Laois, are two other
examples). In the fifteenth century, the tower was raised
yet again to provide two more floors including an attic
between two new gable ends. The basement, meanwhile, which
had hitherto been accessible only by ladder through a trap
in the first floor, now received its own entrance cut into
the splayed plinth. The top of the tower was equipped with
battlements whose rectangular merlons were more akin to
Norman-style merlons such as were found in English great
towers.
This interesting castle has been very carefully restored by
the Office of. Public Works. It was linked to the town that
expanded beside it during the Middle Ages, which itself was
enclosed by a comprehensive system of walls, towers and
gates, much of which remains to be seen today. Among the
buildings enclosed was a Dominican friary (now in ruins)
which was founded soon after Meiler's first Works
See more
Castles
in County Galway
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