fortification and sovereign powers (1180-1340)

Shannon has cut through it, a ditch isolating it from the rest of the esker to create a ringwork castle. After John left Ireland in 1210 the justiciar John de Gray replaced the timber castle with one of stone12. A large sub-circular, ten or eleven-sided polygonal enclosure was constructed, only half surviving post-medieval changes. (fig. 6a) The side facing the river was longer than the others to accommodate a timber hall later replaced in stone. The walls stood eight metres above the enclosure inside and fifteen metres above ground outside. One long plunging arrow loop survives at the south-southwest angle. A 1685 map indicates that the polygonal curtain had at least three rectangular mural towers, one a gate-tower in the north face and the others probably open-gorged. (fig. 6c) The latter two were on the southeastern arc of the curtain overlooking the road into Connacht from the Shannon bridge. A tower collapse in 1211 that the annals tell us killed nine people probably refers to one of the mural towers perched on the unstable edge of the esker.13 (fig. 6d)

At the centre of this enclosure a polygonal great tower was built. The tower was c. ten-sided externally but circular internally. It was taken down c. 1800 and a new

12. Hennessey 1871, p. 245.

13. O’Donovan 1848, p. 169; Hennessey 1871, p. 245-6. The Annals of the Four Masters incorrectly place this event in 1210.

Fig 5. Dungarvan Castle: a. the shell-keep with its modern entrance. The blocked original first-floor entrance contains the left-hand pair of modern musketloops; b. reconstruction drawing of the castle after later 13th-century additions (courtesy of Dave Pollock); c. plan of the castle.

Fig 6. Athlone Castle: a. part of the remaining curtain. The arrow indicates the blocked plunging arrow loop; b. The 19th-century polygonal tower built on the foundations of the demolished c. 1210 polygonal great tower; c. comparative plans of Athlone and King Henry II’s Orford; d. reconstruction drawing of the castle after the 1211 collapse of a tower, killing Richard de Tuite and eight others. slightly narrower polygonal tower built on top of the base of the old one and no medieval features survive. (fig. 6b)

Limerick

Limerick castle was also begun c. 1210 following John’s expedition to Ireland. Architecturally, it is certainly the finest of John’s castles in concept, though it did not come close to completion before John’s death. The 1211-2 pipe roll records expenditure of £ 733 16s 11d on the castle, an exceptionally large sum14. The sum is too large a sum for that part of the castle that he constructed. This comprised a two-storey twin-towered gatehouse with round towers, a separate larger round tower, and short polygonal arcs of curtain between and on either side of these. (fig. 7a-c) By comparison with John’s works in England, this façade cannot have cost more than £500 to build. The rest of the money probably went on repairing the ringwork castle that the masonry only partially replaced, and on thirteen stone piers that were to support a timber bridge built over the Shannon beside the castle.15 (fig. 7e) Work then stopped for over two decades, after which the castle adopted a quadrilateral plan. (fig. 7a)

The gatehouse is probably one of the first of its type built in Britain and Ireland. In Britain, Dover’s north gatehouse, brought down in the 1216 siege, may date from 1207-8 when £ 170 was spent on the castle, though more likely sums of £ 200 or more don’t appear in the records until 1212.16 Only Marshal’s gatehouse at Chepstow is earlier if it predates 1200 as is presumed.17 In Ireland, William I Marshal was responsible for the early twin-towered gatehouse at Kilkenny, begun c. 1208. The gatehouse at Limerick is unusual in that its round towers are truncated in line with the interior of the curtain, but the gate passage extends into the castle as a square third two-storey tower, giving the structure a T-shape. (fig. 7a, d-e) The square tower was demolished c. 1750, so the only detail known is that the upper storey was entered from an external staircase. (fig. 7, d, arrowed, e) The truncation of the inner arc of the towers extends to the northeast tower. (fig. 7d) The location of doors at different levels into the tower, which has a large ground-floor chamber with a fireplace, and embrasures in the adjacent curtain suggest that the tower acted in conjunction with a timber-built domestic range erected against tower and curtain. (fig. 7e) One of two ground floor window embrasures has a pair of arrow loops in the style of Henry II’s work at Dover.

14. Davies, Quinn 1941, p. 69; Tietzsch-Tyler 2013, p. 144.

15. Tietzsch-Tyler 2013, p. 160.

16. Brown 1955, as reproduced in Lidyard 2003, Table A, p. 164-6, Table B, p. 173.

17. Avent 2003, p. 53. Some doubt has been cast on the interpretation of the dendrochronological dating of the gates as reflecting the date of the twin-towered gatehouse itself: Guy 2015, p. 193-201; Tietzsch-Tyler 2018, p. 130.

The polygonal arc of masonry curtain and towers replaced less than half of the perimeter of the existing oval ringwork which it closely follows. This begs the question of what the final castle was intended to look like. This writer has suggested before that a polygonal castle might have been intended with several round towers but no great tower.18 The castle stood isolated outside the city walls to the south, (fig. 7b) so an alternative possibility is that the ends of the king John’s northern façade were intended to be carried back to the existing north city wall to create a long ridge-top citadel comparable to Angevin fortresses such as Chinon in France.

Limerick Castle: a. phased plan; b. map of walled medieval Limerick on King’s Island; a-b. 1. early Viking enclosure, 2. Norse walls at 1200, 3. religious enclosures, 4. Anglo-Norman ringwork, 5. 121112 castle walls, 6. 1235-50 castle and town walls, 7. 12721300 castle walls, 8. 15th-century harbour walls, 9. post-medieval castle artillery bastion; c. King John’s castle exterior; d. King John’s castle interior. The arrow indicates the firstfloor entry into the third square tower; e. reconstruction drawing of the castle after completion of King John’s works in 1211-2.