Castle, Drumlummin, Co. Tipperary South
Co. Tipperary |
Masonry Castles
Perched on a gentle natural rise in Drumlummin, County Tipperary South, this castle site overlooks ground that slopes southwest towards the River Tar.
The undulating terrain, now transformed into lush meadow after land reclamation, holds no visible trace of the medieval stronghold that once stood here. Yet this peaceful field conceals centuries of gradual decay and deliberate destruction that reduced a once formidable castle to nothing more than a memory in the landscape.
Historical records paint a picture of the castle's long decline. When surveyors documented the area during the Civil Survey of 1654;6, they described the structure simply as 'a stump', suggesting it had already suffered significant damage by the mid seventeenth century. The Ordnance Survey maps tell their own story of deterioration; the first edition from 1840 depicted a rectangular building marked as 'in ruins', whilst by the second edition in 1907, only a single wall remained standing. The castle's final above ground remnants met their end in the 1950s, when the lower courses were completely levelled.
Though the castle itself has vanished, modern archaeological techniques have revealed intriguing hints about the site's broader history. A magnetometer survey conducted in 1981 uncovered evidence of a D shaped enclosure surrounding the castle location, likely a defensive fosse or ditch. Unfortunately, no artefacts were recovered from this feature that might provide a definitive date for its construction or use, leaving questions about whether it was contemporary with the castle or perhaps evidence of an earlier or later phase of occupation at this strategic riverside location.
