12 Chapter Twelve: Barryscourt Castle and Cahir Castle
Barryscourt Castle
“A tower house is a tall, fortified structure, where the upper floors serve as a dwelling and the lower spaces, including the entrance, are strongly build and well protected. Barryscourt Castle, a fine example of a tower house, was originally situated at the head of the silted-up tributary to the estuary of Cork Harbour. It stood near the Slatty Lake and River and may once have had its own water mill and extended village community. Named after its builder, the Barry family, the castle was strategically placed on the main route between Cork and Youghal” (Pearson 88).
“The original Norman castle was thought to have been built by Philip de Barry in 1206 and it remained the home of that noted Cork family until the 17th century. Recent radiocarbon dating of hazel rods in the castle suggest a date of c. 1400 for much of the castle structure. . . . John Barry was appointed Sheriff of Cork in 1401, while his descendant David Barry took part in the Munster Rebellion in the 16th century. Barryscourt Castle was taken over by Sir Walter Raleigh for some years after 1581. However, following a shift in loyalties, John Barry’s property was restored to him, and he went on to rebuild or at least remodel Barryscourt in 1588. This date appears on the fine limestone chimneypiece in the Great Hall of the castle, along with his name and that of his wife, Eleanor Roche. Another inscription on a three-light Gothic window records their initials and the date 1586. David’s grandson became the first Earl of Barrymore in 1627, but on his death the castle was no longer used as a Barry residence and, by the 18th century, it has fallen into ruin” (Pearson 90-1).
Source: Pearson, Peter. “Norman Tower House.” Irish Arts. Summer 2026, pp. 88-95.
Barryscourt features:
- Turrets
- Gun loops
- Murder hole
- Keep (three-story high)
- Corner towers (five-story high)
- Gothic windows
- Great Hall
- Inscription on limestone chimneypiece: Ao.Do.1588 DB et ER me fier fecerut (In 1588 David Barry and Eleanor Roche caused me to be built.)
- Double-braced oak ceiling in the Great Hall
- A chapel, oriented to the east, with a cinquefoil Gothic window over the built-in altar and an arched recess with a replica piscina or holy-water stoup and small cupboards for vestments.
- Garderobes (four!)
- A fortified bawn
- Ogham
- Tudor knotted garden
- Cannonball lodged in the outer wall
- Apple orchard
- Stumbling stairs
Arthur/Artaius (a Celtic deity)
“Riding forth in search of some chivalric deed, Owain, a knight of Arthur’s Court, came to a splendid castle. The lord of the castle bade him take the road up the valley and through a forest till he came to a glade with a mound in the midst of it. On the mound he would see a black man of huge stature with one foot and one eye, bearing a mighty iron club. He was wood-ward of the forest, and would have thousands of wild animals feeding around him. . . . The black man directed him to where he should find a fountain under a great tree; by the side of it would be a silver bowl on a slab of marble. Owain was to take the bowl and throw a bowlful of water on the slab. A terrific storm of hail and thunder would follow, and then would appear a knight in black armour riding on a coal-black horse, with a black pennon upon his lance. During a joust, Owain wounds the Black Knight and follows him across a drawbridge. The outer portcullis falls as the Black Knight passes it. But so close to his heels is Owain that the portcullis falls behind him, cutting his horse in two behind the saddle, and he is imprisoned between the outer gate of the drawbridge and the inner. A maiden gives him a ring; with the stone reversed, he becomes invisible.”
Sir Gaiwain and the Green Knight
“Gaiwan first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain where he is called Walgainus. . . He resembles the Gwalchmai of Welsh legend and Cuchulainn in the Irish epics. Like the latter, he possesses many of the properties of a sun-hero, such as the increase of his strength until mid-day and its decline thereafter. He was the real owner of Excalibur, which was originally a dazzling sun-weapon. . . . As folk-tale hero, he is the central figure of primitive stories, sometimes scarcely altered from their crude originals, and cuts a less and less imposing figure as the material becomes artificial and literary. . . . The Green Knight’s challenge to Gawain is an example of a Celtic episode that we may call the Beheading Game. . . . In the case of the Beheading Game, the earliest form of the story is to be found in the Irish epic Briciu’s Feast [see below] in which it is part of the contest for the championship of Ulster, with Cuchulainn as its hero” (Barber 114).
Source: Barber, Richard. The Arthurian Legends: An Illustrated Anthology. Peter Bedrick, 1979.
Briciu’s Feast , and the War of Words of the Women of Ulster
BRICRIU of the Bitter Tongue made a great feast one time for Conchubar [Connor], son of Ness, and for all the chief men of Ulster. He was the length of a year getting the feast ready, and he built a great house to hold it in at Dun-Rudraige.
When Bricriu had finished building the hall and the sunny parlour, and had furnished them with quilts and coverings, beds and pillows, and with a full supply of meat and drink, so that nothing was wanting, he set out for Emain Macha to see Conchubar and the chief men of Ulster.
It happened that day they were all gathered together at Emain Macha, and they made him welcome, and they put him to sit beside Conchubar, and he said to Conchubar and to them all, “Come with me to a feast I have made ready.”
“I am willing to go,” said Conchubar, “if the men of Ulster are willing.”
But Fergus, son of Rogh, and the others, said: “We will not go, for if we do, our dead will be more than our living, after Bricriu has set us to quarrel with one another.”
“It will be worse for you if you do not come,” said Bricriu.
“What will you do if they do not go with you?” said Conchubar.
“I will stir up strife,” said Bricriu, “between the kings and the leaders, and the heroes of valour, and the swordsmen, till every one makes an end of the other, if they will not come with me to use my feast”
On that day, all the chief men met together in council, and this is what Sencha advised: “It is best for you to get securities from Bricriu, as you have to go along with him; and put eight swordsmen around him, to make him leave the house as soon as he has laid out the feast for you.”
So Ferbenn Ferbeson, son of Conchubar, brought the answer to Bricriu.
“I am satisfied to do that,” said Bricriu.
[Briciu proceeds to pit Laegaire Buadach, Conall Cearnach, and Cuchulainn against one another in a contest for the Champion’s Portion of the feast.]
“By the god of my people,” said Cuchulain, “whoever comes to try and keep it [the Champion’s Portion] from me will lose his head.”
While the feast was being spread out, the musicians and players made music for them.
As soon as Bricriu had spread the feast with its well-tasting, savoury meats, he was ordered by his sureties to leave the hall on the moment; and they rose up with their drawn swords in their hands to put him out. With that Bricriu left them and followed after the army, as if he had done nothing to stir up a quarrel at all. . . .
When Briciu was on the threshold of the house he turned and called out: “The Champion’s Portion of my house is not the portion of a fool’s house; let it be given to whoever you think the best hero of Ulster.” And with that he left them.
[Eventually Laegaire Buadach, Conall Cearnach, and Cuchulainn fight, as do their wives. Then . . . ]
As the day was wearing to its close, they saw a big awkward fellow, very ugly, coming to them into the hall. It seemed to them as if none of the men of Ulster could reach to half his height. He was frightful to look at. Next to his skin he had an old cow’s hide, and a grey cloak around him, and over him be had a great spreading branch the size of a winter shed under which thirty cattle could find shelter. Ravenous yellow eyes he had, and in his right hand an axe weighing fifty cauldrons of melted metal, its sharpness such that it would cut through hairs, if the wind would blow them against its edge.
He went over and leaned against the branched beam that was beside the fire.
“Who are you at all?” said Dubthach of the Chafer Tongue. “Is there no other place for you in the hall that you come up here? Is it to be candlestick to the house you want, or is it to set the house on fire you want?”
“Uath, the Stranger, is my name,” said he; “and neither of those things is the thing I want. The thing I want is the thing I cannot find, and I after going through the world of Ireland and the whole world looking for it, and that is a man that will keep his word and will hold to his agreement with me.”
“What agreement is that?” said Fergus. “Here is this axe,” he said, “and the man into whose hands it is put is to cut off my head to-day, and I to cut his head off to-morrow. And as you men of Ulster have a name beyond the men of all countries for strength and skill, for courage, for greatness, for highmindedness, for behaviour, for truth and generosity, for worthiness, let you find one among you that will hold to his word and keep to his bargain. Conchubar I put aside because of his kingship, and Fergus, son of Rogh, for the same reason. But outside these two, come, whichever of you will venture, he to cut off my head to-night, I to cut off his head to-morrow night”
“It is not right for dishonour to be put on a whole province,” said Fergus, “for the want of one man that will keep his word.”
“Sure there is no champion here after these two are left out,” said Dubthach.
“By my word, there will be one this moment,” said Laegaire, and he leaped out on the floor of the hail. “Stoop down, clown, that I may cut off your head to-night, you to cut off mine to-morrow night.”
“By the oath of my people,” said Dubthach, “it is no good prospect you have if the man killed to-night comes to kill you to-morrow.”
Then Uath put spells on the edge of the axe and laid his neck down on a block, and Laegaire struck a blow across it with the axe, till it went into the block underneath, and the head fell on the floor and the house was filled with the blood.
But presently Uath rose up and gathered his head and his axe to his breast and went out from the hall, his neck streaming with blood, so that there was terror on all the people in the house.
“I swear,” said Dubthach, “if this stranger, being killed, comes back to-morrow night, he will not leave a man alive in Ulster.”
Back he came the next night to have his agreement kept. But Laegaire’s heart failed him, and be was nowhere to be found.
But Conall Cearnach was in the hall, and he said he would make a new agreement with him. So all happened the same as the night before, but when Uath came the next day, it was the same with Conall as with Laegaire, his heart failed him when it came to the keeping of his bargain.
Cuchulain was there that night when Uath came in and began to reproach and to mock at them all. “As for you, men of Ulster,” he said, “all your courage and your daring is gone from you; you covet a great name, but you are not able to earn it. Where is that poor squinting fellow that is called Cuchulain,” he said, “till I see if his word is any better than the word of the others?” “I will keep my word without any agreement,” said Cuchulain. “That is likely, you miserable fly, it is in great fear of death you are.”
On that, Cuchulain made a leap towards him and gave him a blow with the axe, and hurled his head to the top rafter of the hail, so that the whole house shook.
On the morrow the men of Ulster were watching Cuchulain to see if he would break his word to the stranger, as the others had done. As Cuchulain sat there waiting for him, they saw that he was very down-hearted, and they made sure his life was at its end, and that they might as well begin keening him.
And then Cuchulain said to Conchubar, and there was hanging of the head on him, “Do not go from this till my agreement is fulfilled, for death is coming to me, but I would sooner meet with death than break my word.”
They were there till the close of day, and then they saw Uath coming.
“Where is Cuchulain?” he said.
“Here I am,” be answered. “It is dull your speech is to-night,” said the stranger; “it is in great fear of death you are. But however great your fear, you have not failed me.”
Then Cuchulain went to him and laid his head on the block.
“Stretch out your head better,” said he.
“You are keeping me in torment,” said Cuchulain; “put an end to me quickly. For last night,” he said, “by my oath, I made no delay with you.”
Then he stretched out his neck, and Uath raised his axe till it reached the rafters of the hail, and the creaking of the old hide that was about him, and the crashing of the axe through the rafters, was like the loud noise of a wood in a stormy night. But when the axe came down, it was with its blunt side, and it was the floor it struck, so that Cuchulain was not touched at all.
And all the chief men of Ulster were standing around looking on, and they saw on the moment that it was no strange clown was in it, but Curoi, son of Daire, that had come to try the heroes through his enchantments.
“Rise up, Cuchulain,” he said. “Of all the heroes of Ulster, whatever may be their daring, there is not one to compare with you in courage and in bravery and in truth. The Championship of the heroes of Ireland is yours from this out, and the Champion’s Portion with it, and to your wife the first place among all the women of Ulster. And whoever tries to put himself before you after this,” he said, “I swear by the oath my people swear by, his own life will be in danger.”
With that he left them. And this was the end of the Women’s War of Words, and of the quarrel among the heroes for the Championship of Ulster.
In 1605, Harry Holland took over the Master’s garden at Trinity College in Dublin. He was required to grow turnips, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, artichokes, onions, leeks “and other things as they shall need for 30 persons or 8 messes as the cook shall think good.” Holland is permitted to take half of all the herbs, lavender, roses and fruit of the trees.
“We are come to the castle already. The castles are built very strong, and with narrow stayres, for security. The hall is the uppermost room, lett us go up, you shall not come down agayne till tomorrow. The lady of the house meets you with her trayne. Salutations past, you shall be presented with all the drinkes in the house, first the ordinary beare, then aqua vitae, then sacke, then olde-ale, the lady tastes it, you must not refuse it. The fyre is prepared in the middle of the hall, where you may solace yor, selfe till supper time, you shall not want sacke and tobacco. By this time the table is spread and plentifully furnished with. variety of meates, but ill-cooked and without sauce. When you come to yor chamber, do not expect canopy and curtaines.”
-Luke Gernon, a travelling Englishman in Ireland in 1620.
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We are not going to Cahir Castle, so no need to read this section.
Cahir Castle
- 3rd century – earthen Dun Iascaigh, one of the seats of the Kings of Munster
- 793 – Landing of Vikings
- 1169 – Anglo-Norman Invasion
- 1192 – the area around Cahir granted to Philip Worcester by John, Lord of Ireland, who later became King John.
- 1375 – the barony of Cahir granted to James, third Earl of Ormond, and to Elizabeth, his wife. James was the head of the great Anglo-Norman family of the Butlers.
- 1556 – Elizabethan plantation of Ireland began.
- 1599 – Siege of Cahir Castle by Earl of Essex
- 1650 – Cromwell threatened to attack Cahir Castle.
- 1690 – Battle of the Boyne / Flight of the Earls
