Ardfinnan Castle

The castle was built in 1185 by Prince John of England, then first Lord of Ireland, during his first expedition to Ireland. It appears to be the first castle built and occupied by a member of the English Crown in Ireland. To guard the northern border of Waterford from the Gaelic kingdom of Thomond, John's father Henry II of England proposed Ardfinnan and Tybroughney on the fording of the river Suir, with Lismore on the Blackwater as key positions to erect castles. Most importantly, Ardfinnan would secure a passage from the Anglo-Norman-occupied southern sea-board into central Ireland, specifically into the kingdom of Thomond. John arrived in Waterford in April 1185 and built a castle on Fíonán's height (Ardfinnan) where a monastery had stood and after which he granted the marcher lord and knight Maurice de Prendergast with the Manor of Ardfinnan, twelve miles directly north of its sister at Lismore Castle, with Lismore commencing construction soon after in the same year. Prendergast protected John at the royal castle of Ardfinnan or “Castrum de Harfinan” as it’s governor. John issued royal charters during his brief stay at the castle.{{Cite journal |last=Hammond |first=Matthew |date=2006-01-01 |title=Irish royal charters.Texts and contexts. By Marie Thérèse Flanagan. Pp. xv + 451. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. £85. 0 19 926707 3 |url=https://www.academia.edu/86630438/Irish_royal_charters_Texts_and_contexts_By_Marie_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Flanagan_Pp_xv_451_Oxford_Oxford_University_Press_2005_85_0_19_926707_3 |journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History |doi=10.1017/S0022046906378864}}

In opposition to John's construction of the castles, Lismore Castle was taken by surprise in an attack by the Irish, and its governor, Robert de Barry, was slain along with his entire garrison. King of Munster Donal O'Brien, King of Connacht Rory O'Conner and King of Desmond Dermod MacCarthy, now headed for Ardfinnan. Opposite the imposing castle and on the other side of the river, it became aware to O'Brien that he would not be able to take it by force. Indicating retreat, he turned back only to be pursued by the small garrison of knights holding Ardfinnan Castle, which for O'Brien would play the advantage. He swiftly turned back towards Ardfinnan and surrounded the now exposed knights, slaying a large portion of them and subsequently taking Ardfinnan Castle. After this and further successive defeats against the Irish Kings, John's original force of 300 men was decimated, and by December of that same year, 1185, he was summoned back to England by his father.

The castle was promptly retaken and the Manor of Ardfinnan was by 1210 under the lordship of Philip of Worcester, with a permanent presence of the Knights Templar, and later the Knights Hospitaller. While the Hospitallers protected this important pass between the ecclecsiatical centres of Cashel and Lismore, they constructed the castle's surviving circular keep in the early 13th century. A historical tradition of spinning and weaving in the village suggests the Knights Templars established a fulling mill while corn milling on the river bank below the castle. A William le Teynturer (William the Dyer, of cloth) is recorded in the Manor of Ardfinnan in 1295.{{Cite web |last=Hodkinson |first=Brian |date=26 June 2025 |title=Who was Who in Medieval Limerick; From Manuscript Sources |url=https://www.limerick.ie/sites/default/files/atoms/files/who_was_who_in_medieval_limerick_-_copy_3.pdf |url-status=live |access-date=26 June 2025 |website=Limerick.ie}}

File:Ardfinnan Castle, by John Callow. Romantic genre..jpg.|250x250px]]

On Saturday 2 February 1650 major general Henry Ireton, who was accompanying Oliver Cromwell in his conquest of Ireland, had neither the boats or sufficient weather in order to make a crossing of the river Suir with his army and subsequently headed for the bridge at Ardfinnan to gain another crucial pass over the river Suir, second to the pass at Carrick. In view of taking hold of the strategically placed castle which guarded this crossing from high above, he waited until around four o’clock the next morning to attempt a siege.

Defending the castle from the Parliamentarians with a small force of soldiers was David Fitzgibbon (the White Knight), Governor of Ardfinnan Castle. The surrounding Manor of Ardfinnan had in this time been in possession of the Bishop of Lismore and the Earls of Ormond. With cannons placed on a hill opposite the castle, Ireton bombarded its once impenetrable walls until there was a large breakthrough after about 8 shots and then proceeded to kill about thirteen of the out-guard and lost only two of his men with about ten wounded. After this the castle was promptly surrendered to the New Model Army who would use it as a garrison throughout their time in Ireland. Fitzgibbon was spared his life for his swift surrender of the castle, but subsequently lost his lands at Ardfinnan and was transplanted to Connacht in 1653. Guns, ammunition and other supplies arriving at Youghal would be brought over the river Blackwater at the pass at Cappoquin and then finally over the river Suir at Ardfinnan to reach the rest of the army in Tipperary. With the end of the Cromwellian campaign of Ireland, the leaving Parliamentarian troops slighted Ardfinnan castle which partially left it in ruins.File:Ardfinnan Castle circular keep.jpg

In 1795 with the threat of invasion during the French Revolutionary Wars, the castle was once again occupied as a military garrison, with British Army fencible units. Despite being in ruins, the position of the castle still commanded over a chief pass on the river Suir and it would be used along with the rest of the Ardfinnan and Neddans area to hold a British Army summer training camp, with reserves ready against French invasion. Training in firing and marching were essential in forging these militia into an effective military force. Although initially established as a temporary encampment for the summer months, it became a permanent camp in March 1796 by the orders of John Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden, which amounted a force of 2,740 mainly Protestant soldiers. The camp was disbanded by 1802.

In the early 19th century, 15 acres with Ardfinnan Castle were reinstated to a descendant of Maurice de Prendergast and relative of Sir Thomas Prendergast, who were now the Prendergasts' of Newcastle. They were Protestant Ascendancy. The castle's tower-house received a restoration around 1846, with the addition of adjoining buildings and was essentially turned into a country house.A summer visit to Ireland in 1846, Whitby West, Richard Bentley 1847 Flying the Union Jack over the village and attempts at building a wall around the village green was a source of local contentment for its new owners.

The last man holding the Prendergast family seat at Ardfinnan Castle was Admiral Sir Robert Prendergast, who settled in England following retirement in 1920.

John Mulcahy, local owner of the underlying Ardfinnan Woollen Mills, purchased the castle in 1921.Death of Mr W.J. Mulcahy". Munster Tribune. 25, March, 1960. p. 5. Further restorations to the building were made by 1929.{{cite web | url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1929-10-24/16/?highlight%5B0%5D=bill&highlight%5B1%5D=bill | title=Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 24 Oct 1929 | publisher=Houses of the Oireachtas | access-date=17 January 2019 }} The latest addition is the three-storey gable-ended wing, likely added during the 1930s.

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080708182424/http://ardfinnan.net/pic-16.htm Ardfinnan Castle] at Ardfinnan.net (Archived)
• [http://www.libraryireland.com/images/ardfinnancastle.jpg Painting of the Original Castle from Illustrated Dublin Journal, No. 6, 12 October 1861]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090202184745/http://tipp.ie/townsandvillages/tipperary/ardfinnan.htm Photograph of Castle]
• [http://www.muintir.ie/default.asp?com=muintircc&org=ardfinnan Information on Ardfinnan Community Council Website]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• [http://archiseek.com/2012/ardfinan-castle-cahir/#.UsbTcvRdXkM Article on the Castle]
• [https://archive.org/stream/jstor-30001387/30001387#page/n1/mode/2up Article from 1841 on the Castle]
• [http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/earlyphotos/a/006zzz001782c16u00036000.html 1860 Photograph]

{{Historic Irish houses}}

Category:Castles in County Tipperary

Category:Tourist attractions in County Tipperary