can come to the bridge of the said castle at the spring-tide (' apud le springtide'). And the said castle contains in itself two separate courts ('duos seperat le coorts') with one bawn ('uno lez balne '), and several strong buildings placed here and there-namely, a large hall and chamber, with three cellars, a kitchen, and other necessary places, and bedrooms, two of which have iron doors. A garden, triangular in plan, in which is a fish-pond, lies to the south; which are all included by a stone wall, and are valued (by the year) by the above said Commissioners in sterling money, at forty shillings."

The lands of the manor may be found in the Appendix to this Paper; but we further learn from the Roll, "there is a watermill a furlong below the said castle, all its walls are of stone, but only the walls remain. The late Earl of Desmond, at the time he went into rebellion, wasted and burned the same." 991 "There is to the north of the said castle a certain island called Gote's Island, full of large underwood (sub-boscis)." From the Peyton Survey of Limerick, 1586, we further learn that there was another wear in Asketten ("unius alter le weare") pertaining to the Earl of Desmond, called Corren Erle, alias the Erle's weare, which was built near to the bridge of Asketten, outside and to the north of the said bridge," and which paid a tythe to the convent.

1903

Nor does this exhaust our material, for, as we have so often had occasion to note, there is a view of Askeaton, probably drawn before this time, and afterwards engraved for "Pacata Hibernia." ." There is a coloured sketch in Lambeth Palace Library of the same, and the view is unusually instructive and (as such views go) fairly accurate, corresponding with the existing remains not merely in salient features but in many details.

At

THE KEEP.-The long, low, wedge-shaped island rises in the centre into a flat-topped, grassy platform, with precipitous sides, which was probably the site of the prehistoric fort of Gephthine, or Iniskefty. the northern end rises the keep of the Desmonds' Castle, a noble tower about 90 feet high, built with shell mortar, showing fragments of cockles, periwinkles, &c., and with (I think) unusually thin walls, little over

1 It was more probably burned by Malbie in 1579. See "Letter of Gerald, Earl of Desmond,' supra, p. 39.

2 It shows the abbey and church as roofed. The Friary was still inhabited in 1586, but the church was then in ruins.

3 See above, vol. xxxiii., p. 158.

4 feet thick. A turret projects from its western face, and a lower but larger building extends to the south. The whole of the eastern face with much of the sides has been so entirely levelled that no trace of the foundations can be seen.

The main tower displays an instructive section with two vaulted stories and an upper room which had a roof, of which the weather ledge is seen against the turret. The lower floor on the platform of the crag had a vault lying east and west. In its north-western corner, lit by a small slit to the north, a small door leads to a narrow flight of stairs which first takes a turn to the left and then runs with a slight curve up the main wall to an ancient oaken door, much decayed, 3 inches thick, and studded with large-headed iron bolts and nails. This opens into a garderobe in the turret; it is called "Desmond's Jail," and measures 8 feet 2 inches by 7 feet 1 inch, with a pit in the south-east corner. Like so many similar structures (as at Quin Abbey, Carrigogunnell Castle, and many other places in our islands and on the Continent), the down-shaft was ignorantly supposed to have been an oubliette, and dismal stories were told about prisoners lowered or flung into its depths. The story above this has a similar arrangement with the pit in the north-west corner, and their drains open separately at the foot of the crag. The staircase then turns eastward, and at the twenty-third step is broken away; it is, however, easy to climb round the broken wall on to the next floor; a large cross-vaulted room, where another door leads into the turret, and an unusual circular ope, which once had a chamfered stone eross-bar, may be noted. The side of a large north window remains, with another smaller one near the north-west corner.

Above this I have not explored the ruin, but the broken rooms can be well seen from the road to the east of the Deel, and from the bridge. Another reach of the staircase runs through the south wall westward, and from it a pointed doorway leads into the upper story of the south wing. The turret rises for two stories above the floor of the main upper room; its uppermost story has a neat western window-slit, and is battlemented; the parapet next the main tower has a round hole-"a breach in the battlement," made (of course) by a cannon shot of "Cromwell." All the rooms have small slits to the south, flanking the western wall. A curious arrangement prevails: an angular projection extending from the turret to the main wall on the south is made to overhang and protect that recess, and a similar, but semicircular, wall sweeping from the turret to the north wall of the keep, and curving into their respective faces; it stops at the floor level of the second vaulted room. In this projection we note a deep recess at the north-west angle of the upper room of the keep, which is lit by a large double-headed window with (I believe) cinquefoil heads; a similar window opens near the recess in 1It is very hard to distinguish between the small, stepped window-heads and those which are cusped, even at a short distance from them. For views of some of the

1

the north wall of this room. of the annexed south wing.

Another door opens on to the battlements

The stairway leads to a curious little inner turret, opening on the south gutters of the main roof. These gutters were supported on corbelling, and afforded a narrow footway between the roof and the lofty three-stepped battlements.

The south wing adjoins the keep, and has three stories; the first was under a vault lying north and south; two windows with flat heads open in the west wall. In the second story remains the frame of that great cross-barred window so prominent in the "Pacata" view; it had stepped heads. The upper story has a large, plain but neat fireplace, and (to the

north end) a perfect window with two oblong lights. A door, already noted, opens into this room from the keep. The upper part seems to have undergone considerable alteration, perhaps when the fireplace and its lofty chimney were made, in the sixteenth century, as two lines of roof are marked against the keep. It was also crowned with three-stepped battlements. The trace of a long chimney-shaft runs up the wall at the southern end. The outer thickening of the wall at the chimney is supported on a neat corbelling of three small, pointed arches.

THE UPPER WARD was defended by a wall of irregular plan, running

windows in Askeaton Castle, see Gentleman's Magazine, 1864, vol. xvii., part II., pp. 544, 545.

along the top of the crags. This, in Elizabethan times, had plain, square battlements and loopholes, but is now nearly demolished to the inner level of the court. It was defended at its southern end by a strong tower, said to be older than the keep, from which it lies about 72 feet distant. The lower story is vaulted, and is 8 feet to 10 feet high, with small defaced opes. Above this rose more than one unvaulted story, 23 feet 2 inches by 15 feet 9 inches. The north and west walls, or rather their angles, rise about 40 feet, but the centre of each is nearly levelled to the floor. At the south-western angle projects an irregular little

turret, its faces flush with the lines of the inner ramparts; it commands the foot of the sloping way which rises northward up the eastern crag to the remains of a strong gate. If we can trust the "Pacata" view, there was opposite the hall another tower as high as the south wing of the keep, having at least three stories, and battlemented on the western face. Of this no remains are visible, though the wall from it to the hall can still be traced.

The ruined club-house extends across the lower ward to the east of the central platform. It is reputed (I know not if there is the least truth

in the statement) to have been a "Hell-fire Club," and vague legends existed of orgies celebrated by that ill-reputed association within its walls. When I first saw it in 1875, some of the roof-timbers remained; ten years later the arch of the main window had partly fallen; but it is little the worse for the eighteen years that have since elapsed.

THE LOWER YARD.-A long modern wall, but resting, I believe, upon old foundations, crosses the island, not far to the south of the crag. In the scarcely defensible southern angle lay, according to the Desmond Roll, the garden and fish-pond of the castle. The ramparts are intact to the north-west from the hall to the bridge. They have stepped battlements, and are so narrow that they were possibly defended off wooden platforms. The walls have some recesses and loopholes. The ward was further divided by a strong cross-wall from the upper ward to the hall. This is shown in the "Pacata " view, and the western end and foundations remain. The high, double gateway at the bridge has entirely disappeared. Any foe who forced his way over the bridge and through that strong gate would have found himself in a death-trap, under deadly fire from the keep, the upper ward, the cross-wall, and the hall, which had evidently a battlemented walk outside its northern gable and along the gutter.

THE BANQUETING-HALL' is a large and handsome building of the fifteenth century. The details are so closely similar to those in the abbey, that we may regard them as by the same hands. It is still in very good preservation, save for the shafts of some of the windows and one arch. It is two stories high; the upper is a single room 72 feet by 30 feet 4 inches to 31 feet 4 inches wide, there being a slight projection in the south-west corner. Strange to say, the western wall forms part of the outer wall of the castle, which (despite the protection formerly afforded by the surrounding branch of the river) must, with its great windows, have been exposed to no little danger in times of war, and made a considerable gap in the defensive area of the ramparts. The southern end is blank, save for three shallow arches extending across its upper face to widen the base of the gable and parapet. The arches rest on two pointed and moulded corbels, the western one of which ends in sprigs, with two roses, one of which is still unfinished. The east wall has five large windows which, like those to the west, vary in height, the southern being 12 feet high; the others about 10 feet high, and of varying breadth, 6 feet, 5 feet 6 inches, and 6 feet 3 inches. The two more northern windows have their jambs much defaced. Their arches are supported by modern piers. They spanned for many years a huge gap, being only supported by their rock-like masonry. A modern flight of

See last two pages. The Journal, vol. xix. (1889, p. 159) gives a short description of the hall, and says, "The gable wall of this portion" (the vaulted rooms) "includes the gable of an ancient church." Perhaps, however, this refers to the room at the south end.

2 See p. 115, fig. 2.