Blackwater Castle

The ground at Castletownroche, in north County Cork between Mallow and Fermoy, was occupied long before any castle stood on it. Flint scatter at Kilcummer and the caves on the south bank of the Awbeg place the first occupation of the site in the Mesolithic, some nine thousand years ago, and by the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age it carried Dun Cruadha, an inland promontory fort.

In the late 12th century, following the Anglo-Norman and Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland, Alexander and Raymond FitzHugh, grandsons of Maurice FitzGerald, established their own fortress on the site of Dun Cruadha. The round tower at the eastern end of the castle dates from that period and is still standing, although it is no longer accessible.

Alexander FitzHugh's daughter Synolda married David de la Roche, and with that marriage the district later known as the Barony of Fermoy became Roche Country. The castle stayed in Roche hands for close to five hundred years, the family politically powerful and influential throughout, and the fabric of that long tenure is still on the ground: a 13th-century watch tower with its sentry walk, stretches of medieval defence wall, and a Norman keep of the 15th century, the same century to which the residential part of the building goes back.

A Sheela na Gig and St Patrick's Holy Well stand on the site, and the medieval manuscript known as The Book of Fermoy, now housed in the Royal Irish Academy, is counted among its heritage.

In 1666 the castle passed from the Roches to Colonel John Widenham, and Roche Castle became Castle Widenham. It stayed in the Widenham line for a further three hundred years, until the 1960s. The Widenhams were wealthy but politically insignificant, and between them the two families held the place for some eight centuries, which is why so much of its heritage survives intact: the 17th- and 18th-century courtyard and out-buildings remain, as does a fortified mansion of the post-Cromwellian period, later modified and extended.

Sir Delaval Cotter, 6th Baronet of Rockforest, and his wife bought the castle in the 1960s and restored the tower before selling in 1976. A number of owners followed, under whom the building was substantially renovated and rebranded as Blackwater Valley Castle, and in 1991 the estate passed to the Nordstrom Family Trust, whose approach has been to preserve the site by making the castle self-sufficient. Since 2005 it has been available to rent as a private hire venue for weddings, private parties and holiday rentals, and the courtyard houses an outdoor adventure centre.

The estate remains privately owned, and with parts of its residential section dating to the early 15th century it is reckoned one of the oldest occupied castles in Ireland.