carrigaholt towerhouse

This is a tall and slender 5 storey tower standing in one corner of a bawn and built originally by the MacMahons, Lords of Corcabascin, around the end of the 15th century. The tower is complete with musket holes, 'murder holes' to drop things on intruders' heads when they came in the door and it also has a vault on the 4th floor.

Teige Caech, 'The Short-sighted', Macmahon was unsuccessfully besieged in the tower by Sir Conyers Clifford in 1598, but a few months later the Earl of Thomond succeeded in wrestling the castle from him. It was then taken over by Daniel O'Brien who built the fireplace on the fifth floor which bears the date '1603', and it was probably he who built many of the present windows into the tower.

In 1646 Admiral Sir William Penn called at the castle on his way to Kinsale, having just abandoned Bunratty to the Confederate troops. In 1651 it was taken by Cromwell's general, Ludlow, who kept a garrison there until 1652. Charles 11, however restored the castle to the O'Briens in 1666.