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Lismore

Location
(52°8′35″N, 7°55′39″W)
Lismore
X 05 99
pre-1974 traditional (Republic of Ireland) Waterford
now Waterford
medieval not confirmed
  • Tessa Garton

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Feature Sets
Description

The inner gateway of the castle incorporates a reused Romanesque arch.

History

A monastery was founded at Lismore in 636 by St Carthach and it was named as a See at the synod of Rath Breassail in 1111. In 1127 it is recorded that Cormac MacCarthaig built two churches at Lismore- the same year as he commissioned his chapel at Cashel. The first stone castle at Lismore was probably built on the site of the early Christian monastery by King John in 1185. The Castle became an Episcopal residence in c. 1189 and continued as such until it was granted by Bishop Myler McGrath to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589. Raleigh subsequently sold the castle to Richard Boyle, later First Earl of Cork. Following the extinction of the Cork line the castle passed to the Dukes of Devonshire, to whom it still belongs.

Features

Exterior Features

Other

Comments/Opinions

The gateway appears to date to either the late 16th or early 17thc. Girouard (1964) suggested that the stones may have come from a site reputed to have stood close to the avenue of the site. The use of billet ornament and the design of the chevron are both unusual and point to the work of English masons in the early part of the 12thc. The use of small heads on bosses in the angles of the chevron is similar to the chancel arch of the Nuns' Church, Clonmacnoise (Offaly).

Bibliography

M. Girouard, Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford (part 1), Country Life, August 6, 1964, 336-40.

B. De Breffney and G. Mott, Castles of Ireland, London, 1977.

T. O'Keeffe, Lismore and Cashel; reflections on the Beginnings of Romanesque Architecture in Munster, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland,124, 1994, 118-151.