Taaffe's Castle
| Taaffe's Castle | |
|
County Louth | |
|---|---|
 Taaffes Castle | |
| Type: | Tower house |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | J18851169 |
| Location: | 54°2’27"N, 6°11’11"W |
| Town: | Carlingford |
| History | |
| Built approx. 1520 | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Ruined |
Taaffe’s Castle is a ruined sixteenth century tower house in Carlingford, County Louth, standing near the shore of Carlingford Lough. The tower was built around 1520 as a fortified townhouse and a trading depot for the Taaffe family, from whom descended the Earls of Carlingford, a title granted by King Charles II in 1661.
It is rectangular tower house, four storeys high. A turret projects at the south-west corner. The consideration of the tower as a peaceful trading house is checked by the castle-style spiral staircase and a murder-hole for smiting attackers. There are garderobes at three levels in the north-east corner.
The castle stands close to the old harbour, and its ground floor may have been a trading floor or store, with the owners' residence in the upper floors.
History
The castle was built by the Taaffe family at the time of that Carlingford was a prosperous trading port, which led to the development of the town by its merchants. The Mint was built in the same period.
Later in the 16th century a 2 storey rectangular addition was built against the northern wall.
Decline came in the seventeenth century. Sir John Taaffe received the title Viscount Taaffe but the next year the Civil War broke out the next year, the King was overthrown and the town suffered in the Cromwellian Conquest of 1649. In 1661, soon after the Restoration of King Charles II, Theobald Taaffe was elevated to become Earl of Carlingford. The Jacobite War came in the 1690s and Nicholas Taaffe fell at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. His son, meanwhile had entered Austrian service and did not return to Ireland. By 1744 Carlingford was described as being in a state of ruin, and when the herring deserted the lough in the following century there was little left of Carlingford's trade.
The castle today s part of the premises of a pub.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Taaffe's Castle) |
References
- Curious Ireland: Taaffe's Castle
- Taaffe's Castle onCastles.nl
- Taaffe's castle on Megalithic Ireland
