a brief history
Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
Sheanmore tower house/castle
lies in the townland of Sheanmore in the civil parish of Lismore and Mocollop
at the western bounds of County Waterford near the boundary with County Cork.
Sheanmore castle stands today, alone in the corner of a north facing field and
outside the bounds of the catholic parish of Ballyduff, it once was actively
part of. The building extended higher the than two stories now existing,
possibly up to four stories. It stood in a bailey, surrounded a by wall. Within
this bailey were other (timber) buildings like stables, barns, homes along with
a forge and a kitchen. The two latter were kept apart from the others because
of fire precautions.
The castle was the big house at
the centre of a large agricultural manor, which stretched from the ridge just
south of the castle to the
The early history of Sheanmore
is unclear due to lack of surviving documentation. Because it formed the civil
parish of Mocollop with Mocollop, it is possible that it was once part of
Mocollop manor. The Barry family of Castlelyons had acquired Mocollop by 1300,
while the Fitzgerald family owned the large honour of Dungarvan, which extended
from Kilmacthomas to the bounds of Mocollop. In the wars between the Roche and
Condon families of north
The Fitzgeralds proceeded to
create Sheanmore into a separate manor. A rectangular, stone, hall-house type
structure is likely to have being constructed during the manor formation, near
or at the present castle site. This location would allow it to observe most of
the estate. The manor was divided into five divisions, namely: lands held in
demesne by the lord, land of free tenants, tenants-at-will, cottagers and
betaghs land or unfree Irish commoners. Free tenants usually held one or more
townlands and had their own tenants under them. These tenants paid money as
rent or in kind, by providing food to the castle or giving so many days service
on the demesne lands every year as the cottager mostly did. This mention of
organisation was the usual in other manors and is likely to have also occurred
here. Lack of documentation prevents us from knowing precisely how things
worked on the Sheanmore manor.
Much of the land south of the
Blackwater and some distance up the hills, behind St Michael’s Hall was used
for arable farming intermixed with pasture and meadowland. Income came from
renting out this land or farming it and selling the produce. The manor had its
own corn mill which generated income for the lord and all tenants had to take
their corn there. Further income came from the manor court which settled land
disputes among the tenants and processed minor criminal cases.
As we move into the 1460s our
knowledge becomes clearer. Thomas Fitzgerald, son of James and eight earl of
Desmond, had five sons by his wife, Alice Barry. The first four became
respectively 9th, 10th, 12th and 13th
earls of Desmond. To the fifth son, Gerald Oge, Thomas made him Lord of
Coshmore and Coshbride. This new lordship, based at Mocollop included Shean,
Aghern, Mogeely, Lisfinny, Strancally and the land south to Youghal.[2] It
is possible that Gerald Oge built
The location had an important
defensive job at preventing the eastward expansion of the Condon family of Kilworth.
By the mid 1500’s the Condons had advanced along the Blackwater on the south
bank from Clondalane, taking the townlands of Kilbarry, Ballydorgan,
Ballynaglass (Waterpark), Garrynagoul and Kilcoran. When the county boundary
between
When Gerald Oge died in 1520 he
left four sons; James the eldest got Mocollop, Maurice the second son got
Sheanmore, while Thomas the next son got Kilmacow. The last son, John, got
Strancally and Lisfinny but when he died in 1550 leaving a twelve year old son,
the 15th earl of Desmond seized the two manors and carried young
Thomas into prison where he died in 1554.[3]
Maurice settled into his manor
of Sheanmore, got married and had children. He also connected himself with some
of the great local families. His daughter, Ellis married James FitzJohn Barry
who was 16th Lord Barrymore. The couple had no issue, but James
remarried to have a daughter who became wife of Richard Power, 4th
Lord Curraghmore.[4] But
Maurice and his relations were living in the twilight of their time.
When the 15th earl
of Desmond went to Dromana in 1565 to get Maurice Fitzgerald (Lord Decies), to
acknowledge him as overlord, few could see the consequences of this act of
estate management. Maurice instead of paying his rent, called his friend the
earl of Ormond and the Battle of Affane occurred. Desmond lost and was sent to
the
Ancient grants of land were
revived through people like Sir Peter Carew of
When the earl of Ormond advanced on the Blackwater valley in April 1571
to take Mocollop, Thomas Roe gave assistance. After the successful capture of
Mocollop, Ormond helped Thomas sack Sheanmore when the whole castle complex was
burnt.[6]
The President of Munster gave reason for burning the castle that ‘he had no
store of victual to leave men there.’[7]
The bartizans on Sheanmore tower house
Yet Maurice still stayed
fighting for Desmond until they were defeated in 1574. He then returned home to
rebuild his castle and manor. The manor was provisionally expanded at this time
because Maurice held stewardship of the villages of Bridane, Ballyforge and
White’s Town. These were properties of his brother, the late James of Mocollop
and were let to James’s wife by the earl of Desmond.[8]
But it wasn’t until February 1577 that Maurice got a pardon for his activity
and got secure title to his own lands. The pardon mentions Maurice but we also
get the names of some husbandmen of Sheanmore manor of which some could still
have descendants in the area today. They were Maurice O’Connell, Dermot
O’Craty, Donogh m’Dermod Iuaghiren, Donaugh m’David O’Leyn, Donald m’Shian
O’Donorty, Maurice Roche fitzPhilip FitzGibbon, Thady m’Donougho M’Willelowe
and David Troye.[9]
The end of war didn’t bring the
start of peace. Fitzmaurice kept up a guerrilla campaign until his death in
August 1579, when John of Desmond and brother of the earl, continued the fight.
The Fitzgeralds of Sheanmore kept away from Fitzmaurice’s campaign and
Maurice’s son James would not join his kinsman without the earl of Desmond’s
consent, which didn’t come nor was it encouraged.[10]
The new settlers were putting pressure on
The second Desmond war proved
an intense affair with mass slaughter of people and animals on both sides. Many
of Desmond’s castles fell in early 1580 like Carrigfoyle, Askeaton,
At these dark times a young
courtier got 42,000 acres of Desmond’s land from Youghal to Mocollop including
Shean its castle and manor. This happy individual can only have been Sir Walter
Raleigh, bringer of tobacco and the potato to
In March 1583 the lands of
Sheanmore, Lisfinny, Tallow, Scart and other places were given to Richard Shee
and Robert Rothe of Kilkenny for three years.[12]
These men were the principle advisers and land agents for the earl of Ormond,
who arranged for this transaction by way of reward for services rendered.
When an inquest into the lands
held by the late earl of Desmond took place at Dungarvan in 1586, Maurice
Fitzgerald of Sheanmore is described as been lately dead.[13]
He left a son, James, who lived in the Glenbeg/Coolisheal area with his wife
Honor Fitzgerald. She was the daughter of Edmond Fitzjames Fitzgerald, Dean of
Cloyne, who had three wives and arranged that one of his sons, John, got
elected Dean of Cloyne in succession to the father.[14]
The canon law of having a celibate priesthood was little supported in medieval
In February 1587 Sir Walter
Raleigh got possession of Sheanmore castle, its town and lands. An important
element in the new plantation grants were that the Irish should be expelled and
new English settlers planted in their place. Much the same idea Cromwell had
eighty years later and ended the same way too, with the principle Irish removed
but the bulk of the people kept because too few came from
Thomas Colthurst got a lease on
8 September 1589 for the castle, manor and
By 1597 James Fitzmaurice
Fitzgerald had died leaving his lands at Glenbeg and Coolisheal to his son
Gerald. In that year Gerald sold timber from Coolisheal to Henry Pyne of
Mogeely. Henry was another of
The agreement between Gerald
Fitzjames and Henry Pyne allowed Henry to cut and carry away timber from
Coolisheal during the two year period of 1597-99, for twenty pounds.[17]
The vast quantity of timber at Coolisheal is seen in 1641 when the woods were
valued at five hundred pounds and this after forty years of cutting for pipe
staves and charcoal for Richard Boyle’s iron works.[18]
The business of commerce all
went well until September 1598 when Gerald joined the rebellion of James
Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, son of Thomas Roe of Conna and known as the “Sugan
Earl”. Gerald became
The war went well until Kinsale
and then it got progressively worst for the Irish. The Sugan Earl was captured
by the White Knight in May 1601 and taken to
By March 1601 with the war all
but lost, Gerald gave up his home and got a pardon. He returned to live in the
Glenbeg/Coolisheal area and resumed his estate business. The demand for pipe
staves was still strong and Gerald sold Coolisheal timber to all who wished to
pay. Henry Pyne didn’t see pleasure in this. He filled a bill at the Court of
Chancery after 1603 claiming loses for the processed timber he paid for, the
workers that were killed, the unfinished period of his lease and that Gerald
was breaking this agreement by selling timber to others. The findings of the
court do not appear to have survived but it is likely that Pyne won damages.[21]
Around this time of 1602 Sir
Walter Raleigh sold his entire Irish property portfolio to Richard Boyle which
included Sheanmore castle, its town and two carucates of land. An inquest into
When Gerald vacated Sheanmore,
Richard Boyle leased it and Ballyduff to Cornett Taaffe and his wife Ellis in
1605 for fifty one years. Taaffe built an English house on the property and
lived there for some years but was dead by 1611.[25]
Ellis then managed the property for some years. Gerald’s son John Fitzgerald
saw a chance to get back to Sheanmore and married Ellis. Before the marriage,
Ellis had given the land to Boyle and Sir Thomas Browne, her nephews, in trust
[Browne was a grand nephew-in-law of Boyle – the actual connection of Ellis has
not yet being established]. Disagreements soon occurred. Ellis had rented
Ballygomeasigh (Marston), from Boyle for twenty one years at £10 rent. In March
1626, Boyle had their cattle driven off Ballygomeasigh and made their life
miserable on the rest of the property. John and Ellis filed a petition to the
English Privy Council for the lands of Shean and Ballyduff to be restored to
them.
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl
of Cork, has been acclaimed by many for the major improvements he made all over
his Irish lands. For him to see a manor like Sheanmore, barren and unproductive
was an anathema. By the late 1620’s he decided to put this right. In Richard’s
diary for 1 May 1627 he writes of an agreement with his carpenter to build a fortified
house on the manor;
‘I agreed with Andrew Tucker, my carpenter, to build me a
This is the old house on
Clancy’s farm. It is highly likely that the upper story of Sheanmore castle was
taken down at this time as a quick quarry for building stone. Andrew Tucker
worked many times for the earl and is mentioned in the diaries in October 1636
presenting his lordship with a model of another new house.
The Civil Survey, written in
1654, records the land owners of 1640 in the Shean and Ballyduff district. The
manor was bounded on the east by Coolydoody, Glenbeg and Coolisheal; on the
south by Glentoir; on the west by Ballyjames and Mocollop and on the north by the
On the other part of the old
Sheanmore manor lived James Fitzgerald. John Fitzgerald appears to have died by
then and his brother had succeeded. Here he had one ploughland covering
Glenbeg/Coolisheal and lived on the Coolisheal side. The acreage was 750 of
which 15 been meadow (value £7 10s), 235 arable (£30), 150 of wood (£7 10s) and
350 acres of mountain (£5) with a total valuation of £50. The surveyors also
noted that up to £500 worth of timber and wood grew upon the so called
unprofitable lands.[28]
In the so called ‘Census of
1659’ (instead a poll tax abstract of 1660), only six tax payers lived in the
old, and now declined, manor core at Sheanmore, composed of two English and
four Irish. Ballyduff (south of the river) had 34 tax payers of which six were
English with the principle persons been Thomas Jackson and William Jackson.
Most people lived in the two divisions north of the river, namely: Ballyduff
(38) and Coolisheal (48). Thus we have 126 tax payers in Sheanmore manor. The
neighbouring manor of Mocollop had 181 taxpayers.[29]
After the Irish lost the
Confederate war, Cromwell implemented the previous decision of the English
Parliament, made in the early 1640’s, to pay the soldiers and repaid their
financial sponsors with Irish lands. One of these supporters, who were called
adventurers, was William Gibbs. William operated a merchant business in
James Fitzgerald and his family
had to leave the land of his ancestors. Where he ended up, and what became of
his family, is unknown. But William Gibbs didn’t wait long in following James.
He sold the lease on both lands in 1658 to Thomas Jackson who now came to
possess all the old manor of Sheanmore.[31]
The Jackson family began to lose
some parts of the old manor in the early eighteenth century. Christopher
Musgrave, of Salterbridge and later of Tourin, acquired from Sheanmore tower
house to
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What modern townlands went
towards forming the manor of Sheanmore? It is impossible to fix the absolute
boundary of the manor. The tables below give an outline of its extent. The
first table gives the townlands which we can say with good certainty were part
of the manor. In the second table are townlands which could have been, but
which also could have been part of adjoining manors. The townland of Sheanbeg
was part of Mocollop manor until it became a detached portion following the
Condon expansion.[34]
Table one
|
Sheanmore |
480ac |
Sion |
80ac |
Tober |
151ac |
|
Ballyduff Upper |
297ac |
Ballyduff Lower |
322ac |
Glenbeg |
175ac |
|
Ballyduff village |
133ac |
Garrison |
196ac |
Gairha |
120ac |
|
Garra east &west |
154ac |
Flowerhill |
128ac |
Coolisheal |
131ac |
|
Ahaun |
99ac |
Curraghacnav |
298ac |
Knockadullaun E |
456ac |
|
Knocknaglogh |
185ac |
Lafone |
117ac |
Mountainrea |
112ac |
|
Ballyeafy |
478ac |
Clashnamonadee |
125ac |
Tooradoo |
124ac |
|
knockcorragh |
375ac |
Knockatouk |
181ac |
Knockaun |
132ac |
|
Knockananna |
137ac |
Knockadoonlea |
322ac |
Tournageeha |
173ac |
|
Clasheenanierin |
94ac |
Knockaunfargarve |
135ac |
Knockadullaun W |
166ac |
Table two
|
Ballygally west |
96ac |
Ballygally |
149ac |
Ballygally east |
167ac |
|
Coolydoody north |
252ac |
Coolydoody |
233ac |
Coolydoody south |
232ac |
===============
End of post
===============
[1] Gabriel O’Connell
Redmond, “The Castles in
[2] Ibid, JCHAS vol, 24, p. 2
[3] Kieran Heffernan and
Friedrich Billensteiner, The History of
[4] Gabriel O’Connell
Redmond, “The Castles of North-East
[5] Fiants of Queen
Elizabeth, No. 1045
[6] Conna Community
Council, Conna in History and Tradition,
p. 7
[7] Mary O’Dowd (ed.), Calendar of the State Papers
[8] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen, editors, Calendar of Carew manuscripts in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
Kraus, 1974 reprint), vol. 1 (1515-74), p. 417
[9] Fiants of Queen
Elizabeth, No. 2964
[10] Mary O’Dowd (ed.), Calendar of State Papers
[11] Gabriel O’Connell
Redmond, “The Castles of North-East
[12] Fiants of Queen
Elizabeth, No. 4339
[13] Gabriel O’Connell
Redmond, “The Castles of North-East
[14] Ibid, JCHAS, vol 24, p. 62
[15] Samuel Hayman, The Hand-book for Youghal, (Youghal,
1973, facsimile edition), p. 18
[16] H.F. Morris, “The
Pynes of Co. Cork”, in The Irish
Genealogist, vol 6, no. 6, p. 703
[17] R.J. Hunter, “The
disruption of a
[18] Robert C. Simington
(ed.), The Civil Survey, 1654-1656, vol VI, county
of Waterford, with appendices: Muskerry Barony, Co. Cork: Kilkenny city
and liberties, (Dublin, 1942), p. 5
[19] R.J. Hunter, “The
disruption of a
[20] Journal of the
[21] R.J. Hunter, “The
disruption of a
[22] Samuel Hayman, The Hand-book for Youghal, p. 17
[23] Extracts from the
diary of Richard Boyle from Grossart, as written in Albert Eugene Casey &
Thomas O’Dowling, O’Kief, Coshe Many,
Slieve Loughter and Upper Blackwater in Ireland (15 vols. Wisconsin, 1964),
[hereafter refer to as Upper Blackwater],
vol 6, p. 340
[24] Brewer & William Bullen, editors, Calendar of Carew manuscripts in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth,
vol. 6 (1603-24), p. 341
[25] Royal Irish Academy, Ordnance Survey, Books of Inquisitions,
Waterford, vol. 1, p. 64, inquest at Tallow in 1611.
[26] Mahaffy, Robert, editor, Calendar
of State Papers,
[27] Rev Patrick Power, The Place names of the Decies, (Cork
University Press, 1952), p. 34 and extracted from Boyle’s diary for 1 May 1627
[28] Robert C. Simington
(ed.), The civil survey, 1654-1656, Vol
VI,
[29] Seamus Pender (ed.)
with a new introduction by William J. Smyth, A census of Ireland, circa 1659 with essential materials from the Poll
Money Ordinances 1660-1661, (Dublin, 2002), pp. 338-339
[30] Copy of the Survey and
Distribution Book on Lismore parish given to the author by Paddy John Feeney
[31] R. Caulfield, The Council book of the Corporation of
Youghal (
[32] Information on the
[33] Information about the
general history of the period 1550-1600 is based on the book The Twilight Lords by Richard Berleth
(New York, 1994)
[34]
