kanturk castle

The castle is rectangular in shape with massive square towers at each corner. The main block has four storeys, the towers have five. There is a fine Renaissance door in the first floor on the north side and a more traditional pointed door on the ground floor on the south side.

The flat 'Burgundian' arch is a feature of the ground-floor windows, while those on the upper storey and Tudor with two or three mullion. The castle has a remarkable number of well-preserved fireplaces.

This building is an interesting combination of the traditional Irish tower-house architecture with pointed arches and the new Tudor architecture with Renaissance doorways and mullioned windows. It was built by Dermod MacOwen MacDonagh around 1601 as a defence against the English. But news of its building reached England where the Privy Council, being uneasy about its purpose, ordered that building work should stop-and it did, possibly as a result of the disastrous Battle of Kinsale or possibly because MacDonagh could not borrow any more money from English moneylenders.