Castle

The tower was built in the mid-sixteenth century and was originally a stand-alone building. It is five stories high and made of sandstone with some dressed limestone (e.g. at the corners). The external walls were covered in white plaster. The small windows on the north-east corner of the tower light its spiral staircase. The larger windows are later and date from a time when comfort took precedence over security. It is clear where these have been restored by the OPW with limestone surrounds.

The tower was entered by a doorway in the west wall. This was secured by a ‘yett’ (metal grille) and was further protected by a box machicolation at roof level above it. This defensive feature would have allowed the castle dwellers to drop things on attackers and became obviously redundant when the house was added. Next to the machicolation is a ‘drip stone’ that carried water away from the walls. The doorway was also protected by a murder hole built into the wall.

The most striking internal feature of the tower at the moment is a substantial metal frame which was inserted by the OPW to stabilise the structure. This was lowered in through the top of the tower, something that was possible because all of its roof and floors had been taken away in the nineteenth century.

It is easy to see where the original floors were. The quoins that support them are still there as are the doorways opening from the stairs and from small rooms built into the west wall (intramural chambers) which is more than 2m thick. Such spaces provided the building’s garderobes (toilets). The principal rooms would have been subdivided by wooden partitions. As a result, more than one fireplace can be found on some floors. These had decorative surrounds, some of which proved too tempting for recyclers.

The stairs open out in a small caphouse at their top. From here, you could walk around the pitched roof and enjoy an impressive view. The three large chimneys on the west wall may have been ostentatious as well as practical. The gables of the attic level have recently been conserved by the OPW.

Written records show that there was a house at Kilcash in the seventeenth century. This was either demolished or substantially remodelled to become the two-storey structure (plus attic) which is today attached to the tower. The three bays which remain are only 12.5m of a wall that was 46.5m long and which had ten bays (a bay corresponds to a window). This was once an enormous building whose scale is now not immediately appreciable unless you know that the adjoining hedge conceals the foundations of the old house.

The upstairs windows date from the early seventeenth century but were narrowed to follow the dictates of eighteenth-century fashion. Their surrounds are of cut limestone. The lower windows received new oak lintels during OPW restoration. The square holes running along the top of the walls were for brackets supporting the projecting eave of the roof.

Kilcash Castle’s portraits were moved to Kilkenny Castle in the late eighteenth century. An earlier inventory lists the items in the kitchen. Otherwise, nothing is known for certain about the interior division or furnishing of the house. It probably had a formal dining room, a drawing room, informal rooms, and an office (or study) on the ground floor with bedrooms for the residents and guests on the upper floor and in the attic. Kilcash certainly hosted family and hunting parties where visitors stayed for days or even weeks.