Tynte's Castle (; ) is a

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 ...

located in

Youghal Youghal ( ; ) is a seaside resort town in County Cork, Ireland. Located on the estuary of the Munster Blackwater, River Blackwater, the town is a former military and economic centre. Located on the edge of a steep riverbank, the town has a long ...

, eastern

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

, Ireland.

Location

Tynte's Castle is located in the north of Youghal's historic core, on Main Street (anciently King's Street); it is north-northwest of Youghal's Clock Gate and east-northeast of St Mary's Collegiate Church. The tower was originally on the riverfront, but when the

Blackwater River A blackwater river is a type of River#Classification, river with a slow-moving channel flowing through forested swamps or wetlands. Most major blackwater rivers are in the Amazon Basin and the Southern United States. The term is used in fluvial ...

silted up and changed course in the 17th–18th centuries, it was left from the water.

History

Tynte's Castle was built in the late 15th century by the Walsh family, Cambro-Norman merchants who built stores and

fortified houses A fortified house or fortified mansion is a type of building which developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, generally with significant fortifications added. During the earlier Roman Empire, Roman period it was common for wealthy landowner ...

in the town to protect their trade goods. After the

Second Desmond Rebellion The Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–1583) was the more widespread and bloody of the two Desmond Rebellions in Ireland launched by the FitzGerald Dynasty of County Desmond, Desmond in Munster against English rule. The second rebellion began in ...

(1579–1583) they were stripped of their property, which reverted to the Crown. The tower was leased to Sir Robert Tynte (1571–1663) in the late 16th century and refurbished in 1643.

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

's army entered Youghal in 1649 during the

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641 to 1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three ...

; it is assumed that it was used to quarter Parliamentarian soldiers. In 1689, during the reign of

King James II James II and VII (14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685, until he was deposed in the 1688 Glori ...

, it was used as a prison for Cromwell supporters and an attempt was made to burn it down. The castle remained with the Tyntes until it was sold in 1866 to William Raymond FitzMaurice, a wealthy

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...

landowner. The castle was acquired by the McCarthy family in the 1950s, and they restored it. It is now open to tourists.

Building

A fortified stone tower of three storeys, with base batter. It has a hipped

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof with

machicolation In architecture, a machicolation () is an opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement through which defenders could target attackers who had reached the base of the defensive wall. A smaller related structure that only protects key ...

s, Irish crenellations and a

murder hole A murder hole or meurtrière is a hole in the ceiling of a gateway or passageway in a fortification through which the defenders could shoot, throw or pour harmful substances or objects such as rocks, arrows, scalding water, hot sand, quicklime, ...

. There are large windows in the west wall topped with

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

arches; these were probably added in the 19th century when the castle was used as a

granary A granary, also known as a grain house and historically as a granarium in Latin, is a post-harvest storage building primarily for grains or seeds. Granaries are typically built above the ground to prevent spoilage and protect the stored grains o ...

References

{{Commons category, Tynte's Castle Castles in County Cork Buildings and structures in Youghal Towers completed in the 15th century 15th-century establishments in Ireland Tower houses in the Republic of Ireland