18 November 2020

A deserted castle by
the River Suir and
tales of a war-like clan

Ballynore Castle, also known as Dove Hill or Duffhill Castle, between Carrick-on-Suir and Clonmel, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Going back over my photographs from my ‘road trip’ through the southern counties of Ireland as summer was fading and autumn was still in its early days, I came across some photographs I had taken of Ballynoran Castle in Co Tipperary.

Most people passing by probably pay little attention to this sad, decaying tower house by roadside, and we might have missed it too had we not stopped for lunch at the Meadows and Byrne Village on the way from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel.

The Meadows and Byrne Village is a fashionable place to stop, with Blarney Woollen Mills, the Linen Loft and cafés and food shops. But Ballynoran Castle is centuries older, on the opposite side of the road, close to the banks of the River Suir and the border between Co Tipperary and Co Waterford.

Ballynoran Castle is also known as Dove Hill or Duffhill Castle, and it is one of a series of tower houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries and lining the northern banks of the River Suir in Co Tipperary.

This four-storey tower is fighting a losing battle with the encroaching ivy, and it difficult both to see any defining features and to unearth anything about its earlier history. The second storey has a latrine in the north-west corner and a fireplace on the north side, while the third storey has a south-east angle loop.

The tower house is said to have been built by the Mandeville family on land once controlled by the O’More family. It was garrisoned by Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir Castle in 1542, but a century later was noted in the Civil Survey as being ‘a small castle wanting repaire.’

Ballynore Castle was ‘a small castle wanting repaire’ by 1542 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The de Mandeville family came to Ireland with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans. Robert de Mandeville and others murdered William de Burgh, the ‘Brown’ Earl of Ulster, in 1333. The murder reflected the disintegration of Norman rule and triggered a resurgence of Gaelic strength and power in Ulster.

Edmund Curtis repeated the claim that the de Mandeville family had prudently adopted an Irish surname, MacQuillan, in the face of the Gaelic rebellion. The story claimed that the McQuillan family is descended from Hugelin de Mandeville, with the name McQuillan derived from the Irish Mac Uighilín, meaning son of Hugelin.

Edward MacLysaght perpetuated this myth in the 1950s and 1960s in his series of Irish Families books. However, this notion has since been challenged by historians, drawing on sources that show clearly that the McQuillans and de Mandevilles were two different families.

Dunluce Caste, Co Antrim … once the seat of the Clan McQuillan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Clan McQuillan originally claimed descent from Fiacha MacUillin, youngest son of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The family was associated mainly with the north Antrim coast, where they once lived at Dunluce Caste and engaged in many battles with the Scottish McDonnell clan.

Another account says the McQuillans came from Scotland in the 1200s as hired mercenaries, and were the Lords of Route from the late 13th century. According to the Annals of Ulster, a bloody feud between the MacQuillan and the O’Cahan clans started in 1442.

By the 1460s, with the earldom of Ulster near its end, it is said the surviving de Mandevilles of north Antrim deserted their manors in Twescard and sold their interests to the MacQuillans who were already established there.

The MacQuillans renamed Twescard the Route, after their ‘rout,’ a common term then for a private army. Their principal residence in the Route was at Dunluce Castle, near the mouth of the River Bush.

They built their castle on the cliffs around 1500, and the earliest written record of the castle dates from 1513. The earliest features of the castle are two large drum towers about 9 metres (30 ft) in diameter on the east side, both remains of the castle built by the McQuillans after becoming Lords of the Route.

The feud between the MacQuillan and the O’Cahan clans came to end in 1559, when the MacDonnells of the Glens, once allies of the MacQuillans, turned on them. Sorley Boy MacDonnell, with the aid of levies from Scotland, launched a mass assault on the Route against the MacQuillans. The final battle of this assault was at Aura, and saw the end of the MacQuillans and the conquest of the Route by the MacDonnells.

The bloodletting, warrior lifestyles of the MacQuillans of the Route was abandoned by later generation of the family when their direct descendants became Quakers.

In Wexford in the early 20th century, Edward McQuillan claimed to be The McQuillan or head of the Clan McQuillan. He bought Slaney View in Westgate, once the Wexford townhouse of the Perceval family of Slaney Manor, and renamed the house Dunluce.

Edward McQuillan was one of the prominent Quakers in Wexford in his day and died in 1941. The former Quaker Meeting House in High Street, Wexford, dating from 1657, had closed in 1927 following the departure from Wexford of the three remaining Thompson families.

Dunluce at Westgate, Wexford … renamed by Edward McQuillan, a prominent Quaker (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Ruins of lost mediaeval
church in Dunmoylan
with links to ‘Old Abbey’

The ruins of Dunmoylan Church near Shanagolden, Co Limerick … part of the south wall is all that survives (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

After almost four years, I am still getting lost as I try to find my way around the labyrinthine small roads and side roads in this parish in west Limerick. I have tried to find the ruins of the ‘Old Abbey’, near Shanagolden, a number of times, and on my least search I ended up instead at the ruined mediaeval church at Dunmoylan.

Dunmoylan was a mediaeval and civil parish in the Barony of Shanid, Co Limerick, and the church there was recorded as early as 1291. The church belonged to the nuns of ‘Old Abbey’ or Monastery of Saint Catherine near Shanagolden.

All that remains of the church is the south wall. Some stones that were once part of the building lie around the site. Westropp measured the foundations of the church as 42 ft by 18 ft.

At the rear of the church ruin, a circular dún can be made out, suggesting an early church site with boundaries defined by the earthen works that give their name to this place.

Only one pre-Reformation Vicar of Dunmoylan is recorded: Roderick O’Longscyg or O’Longseyg was vicar in 1425-1426, when he was also Vicar of Iniscahan in the Diocese of Killaloe.

Even after the Reformation, the succession of priests in the Church of Ireland parish of Dunmoylan is uncertain. To add to the confusion, two different lists, with different names, survive for this parish for over a century and a half, between the 1680s and the 1740s.

Many of these vicars also held a number of other, neighbouring parishes at the same time, including Castlerobert, Kilbradran, Kilfergus (Glin), Kilmoylan, Kilscannel, Loughill, Shanagolden and Cloncoragh, indicating they probably never lived in the parish, but collected the tithes to supplement their incomes without even trying to provide Sunday services.

For example, Canon Eliezer Gonne (1644-1714) was the Vicar of Dunmoylan in 1687-1714 while, at the same time, he was a Prebendary of Killybegs and Rector of Headford in the Diocese of Tuam, and rector or vicar of at least six other parishes in the Diocese of Limerick.

The Revd Barry Hartwell (1684-1741), who is listed as the vicar in 1715-1741, was, at the same time, a Vicar Choral in Lismore Cathedral, Co Waterford, and the rector of two parishes in the Diocese of Cloyne and one in the Diocese of Cork, while his successor, Sir Robert Pinsent (1706-1781), also held appointments in the dioceses of Derry and Cork at the same time.

The Revd John Graves (1751-1820), who was Vicar of Dunmoylan along with Castlerobert, Kilfinane and Darragh, until he died in 1820, was succeeded by his son, the Revd James William Graves (1784-1865), who later became Rector of Nantenan.

The last recorded Vicar of Dunmoylan was Canon William Maunsell in 1827-1860. But by then, Dunmoylan was a mere sinecure, there were no tithes to collect. At the same time, he was the Vicar of Saint John’s, Limerick (1832-1837) and Rector and Vicar of Kilmurry, Limerick (1837-1860). When he died at Kilmurry Glebe in 1860, the parish of Dunmoylan was absorbed into Shanagolden.

The church grounds may have continued to be used as a burial ground for a short time. Near the church was Tobbereendowney Holy Well, the ‘well of the king of Sunday.’

Dunmoylan castle was recorded as early as 1299. Although the castle site was said to be across the road and 300 metres south of the church ruins, the precise location has long been forgotten, and by 1840 no one in the area could remember any of the walls standing or who had last lived there.

The Morgan family, which was of Welsh descent, was living in Co Limerick by the mid-17th century, and a number of family members were clergymen in the Church of Ireland over many generations.

James Morgan was living at Dunmoylan Manor in the late 17th and early 18th century, and he was the agent of Chichester Phillips for the Earl of Cork’s lands around Askeaton.

His son, the Revd William Morgan, who was born at Dunmoylan in 1680, was the Vicar of Abbeyfeale, while his grandson, Canon Allen Morgan (1700-1763), was Prebendary of Tipperkevin and then of Saint Audeon’s in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. Another grandson, John Morgan of Dunmoylan, married Mary Hodges of Shanagolden, a cousin of George Hodges of Old Abbey.

Their son, George Morgan, was living at Old Abbey by 1814. John Morgan of Park, Shanagolden, owned 342 acres in Co Limerick in the 1870s.

Other members of the family included Canon Hamilton Morgan, chaplain of the King’s Hospital, Dublin (1766-1784) and Prebendary of Dunlavin in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1788-1799); and the Very Allen Morgan (1761-1830), chaplain of the King’s Hospital, Dublin (1784-1830) and Dean of Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe (1828-1830).