Castle Balfour
- Not to be confused with Balfour Castle
| Castle Balfour | |
|
Fermanagh | |
|---|---|
 Castle Balfour, Lisnaskea | |
| Type: | Castle |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | H36223369 |
| Location: | 54°15’8"N, 7°26’32"W |
| Village: | Lisnaskea |
| History | |
| Built c. 1618 | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | (State care) |
Castle Balfour is a castle in Lisnaskea, Fermanagh. It stands at the edge of the parish graveyard just west of Main Street. The castle today is a State Care Historic Monument.[1]
History
Evidence of an early ringfort indicates the area had been inhabited from very early times. In Castle Balfour Demesne, slight surface evidence for a fosse between two banks was revealed after excavation to have been six feet deep. Attempts to find the outer fosse of a bivallate ringfort revealed ‘no distinct, steep edges’ contrasting with the steeply cut inner fosse. Radiocarbon dates of 359-428 AD were found from the ringfort at Castle Balfour.[2]
In the Plantation of Ulster, an estate known as 'Castle-skeagh' was granted to a laird from Fife, Michael Balfour, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, by King James VI and I. Balfour sold his lands in Fermanagh to his younger brother James, Lord Balfour of Glenawley in 1615.[3][4] In 1618/19 Captain Nicholas Pynnar reported that Balfour had begun his building at Castle-skeagh.[3] The village of Lisnaskea developed around it.
The castle was altered in 1652 and damaged in 1689.[5]
The last person to possess and inhabit the castle was James Haire (1737-1833), who leased the castle from John Creighton, Earl Erne. James Haire and his family ceased to occupy the castle after it was destroyed by arson in 1803. His mother, Phoebe Haire, was killed by the fire. It is believed that the perpetrator of the fire was a member of the Maguire family.
Major conservation and restoration was undertaken in the 1960s and further conservation work was completed in the late 1990s.[5]
Features
In 1618/19 Captain Nicholas Pynnar reported that Balfour had 'laid the foundation of a bawn of lime and stone 70 feet square, of which the two sides are raised 15 feet high. There is also a castle of the same length, of which the one half is built two stories high and is to be three stories and a half high’.
Castle Balfour was a long, rectangular three storey building, on a north-south axis, the main block being 85 feet by 26 feet.[3] It had a square wing to the east and west and a later rectangular block on the northern end.[6] It has the style of a Scottish castle and the building is thought to be the work of Lowland Scots masons.[7]
The surviving castle is in a T plan with an entrance with gun-loops. The castle has vaulted rooms and a kitchen with fireplace and oven on the ground floor, main dwelling rooms on the first floor and corbelled turrets with gun slits.[4][5]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Castle Balfour) |
References
- ↑ @"Castle Balfour". Environment and Heritage Service NI - State Care Historic Monuments. http://www.ehsni.gov.uk/state_care_monuments_2007.pdf. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
- ↑ Stout, Matthew (1997). The Irish Ringfort. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 18 and 28.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Flanagan, Laurence (1992). A Dictionary of Irish Archaeology. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. pp. 50–51.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sandford, Ernest (1976). Discover Northern Ireland. Belfast: Northern Ireland Tourist Board. p. 152. ISBN 0 9500222 7 6.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Castle Balfour". http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/05_pl_monuments_co_fermanagh.pdf. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ↑ Fry, Plantagenet Somerset (2001). Castles of Britain and Ireland. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. p. 204.
- ↑ "Other Plantation Castles in Fermanagh". http://www.enniskillencastle.co.uk/media/6534/Plantation-of-Ulster.pdf. Retrieved 18 April 2015.