Castle Hackett is a 13th-century
tower house
A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...
at the base of
Knockma hill, south-west of
Tuam
Tuam (; , meaning 'mound' or 'burial-place') is a town in Ireland and the second-largest settlement in County Galway. It is west of the midland Region, Ireland, midlands of Ireland, about north of Galway city. The town is in a civil parishe ...
, in the parish of Caherlistrane,
County Galway
County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...
,
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
.
History
The tower house was built by the
Hacketts, a
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norma ...
family. The Kirwans, one of the
tribes of Galway
The Tribes of Galway () were 14 merchant families who dominated the political, commercial and social life of the city of Galway in western Ireland between the mid-13th and late 19th centuries. They were the families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Brown ...
, settled there in the 15th century. The Castlehacket branch of the family was established in the mid-17th century by
Sir John Kirwan. The castle was abandoned in the 18th century and the Kirwans built a new three-storey house nearby. This house, known as Castlehacket House, was
burned in 1923 during the
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
but was subsequently rebuilt.
In the introduction to his ''Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry'' (1888),
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th century in literature, 20th-century literature. He was ...
mentions the family and Castlehacket, writing, "Each county has usually some family, or personage, supposed to have been favoured or plagued
ith fairy-seeing abilities especially by the phantoms, as the Hackets of Castle Hacket, Galway, who had for their ancestor a fairy…"
See also
*
Tower houses in Britain and Ireland
Tower houses () appeared on the Islands of Ireland and Great Britain starting from the High Middle Ages. These house-fortifications were constructed in the wilder parts of Great Britain and Ireland, particularly in Scotland, and throughout Irela ...
*
Norman Ireland
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norma ...
References
Bibliography
*
O'Flaherty, Roderic (1846). .
*Spellissy, Sean (1999). ''The History of Galway''.
*Salter, Mike (2004) "The Castles of Connacht")
*Lynch, Ronan (2006). ''The Kirwans of Castlehackett''.
External links
Castlehackett National School
Castles in County Galway
{{Galway-geo-stub