Moorstown Castle

The tower house complex is located on a small road off the modern road from Clonmel to Cahir; while visible from the main road, it is on private land. It stands on a grassed limestone hillock.

Moorstown Castle was built by James Keating, an ally of the Earl of Ormond. The castle and associated lands passed, under a mortgage agreement, to Robert Cox of Bruff in 1635, and then by marriage to the Greene family. It was bought by Richard Grubb through the Landed Estates Court in 1855. As of 2011, the property remained in private ownership.{{cite web|url=http://www.irelandbyways.com/ireland-routes/byroute-4/byroute-44-co-cork-w/3/|title=ByRoute 4.2 Co. Tipperary & Co. Cork (W)|year=2011|publisher=irelandbyways.com|access-date=12 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719182817/http://www.irelandbyways.com/ireland-routes/byroute-4/byroute-44-co-cork-w/3/|archive-date=19 July 2011|url-status=dead}}

It is thought that the 17th-century Catholic priest, poet and historian Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) had family connections with the castle;{{cite book|last=Koch|first=John T.|title=Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia|editor=John T. Koch|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2006|volume=1-5|pages=361|isbn= 978-1-85109-440-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&q=%22may+well+have+been+one+of+the+Keating%22&pg=PA361|access-date=13 March 2020}} evidence suggests that he may have been the third son of James FitzEdmund Keating of Moorstown.{{cite book|last=Cunningham|first=Bernadette|title=The World of Geoffrey Keating: History, Myth and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Ireland |publisher=Four Courts Press|date=2000|pages=21|isbn=978-1-85182-806-7}}

Moorstown consists of a circular tower house or keep, and a protective walled courtyard or bawn; the bawn was probably built first and the tower house added later. The bawn, built with limestone facing inside and outside, and a rubble core, has two defensive towers, to the southwest and northeast, and a fortified gatehouse with residential space for guards. The four-storey circular tower house found at Moorstown is unusual in Irish architecture, most Irish tower houses being square, but the form is found at several locations in County Tipperary.{{cite journal |last1=Wallace |first1=Leo |title=Moorstown Castle - a neglected tower-house near Clonmel, County Tipperary |journal=Tipperary Historical Journal |date=1989 |url=http://www.tipperarylibraries.ie/ths/pdfs/journals/1989/1989%2002%20%5Bpp%2017-19%5D%20Leo%20Wallace.pdf |access-date=12 March 2020 |publisher=County Tipperary History Society}} There is a spiral staircase, and the main living space was on the second floor. The second floor has one larger window; otherwise most of the windows of the building are small. The third floor is believed to have been used to accommodate doves. There are musket loops for defence in multiple locations, and the building has parapets but no battlements.

Moorstown Castle was one of the Tipperary locations used in Stanley Kubrick's 1975 epic film Barry Lyndon.{{cite web|url=http://www.indelibleinc.com/kubrick/films/blyndon/presstexts/irish.html|title=Barry Lyndon Kubrick's Irish Odyssey|year=2011|publisher=indelibleinc.com|access-date=13 March 2020}}

{{reflist}}

• Wallace, Leo [http://www.tipperarylibraries.ie/ths/pdfs/journals/1989/1989%2002%20%5Bpp%2017-19%5D%20Leo%20Wallace.pdf Moorstown Castle - A Neglected Tower-House near Clonmel] in Tipperary Historical Journal (1989)

{{Historic Irish houses}}

Category:Buildings and structures completed in the 15th century

Category:Castles in County Tipperary