Ireland · Restored
Enniscorthy Castle
Enniscorthy Castle is a Norman stone keep and curtain-walled castle in the centre of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland. Built from the late 12th century and remodeled in the Elizabethan period, it features a four-storey rectangular keep with rounded corner towers and later openings; it is now used as a local museum. The castle stands at the head of the River Slaney within the town.
Its prime
1590
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1590
What Enniscorthy Castle looked like in its prime.
A four-storey rectangular stone keep of coursed grey-brown rubble, flanked at its corners by large rounded towers with crenellated battlements. The façade shows narrow medieval arrow slits alongside later, larger rectangular window openings set in stone surrounds. A stone arched gateway and low curtain walls enclose a small courtyard; the building rises directly within the town at the head of the River Slaney. Rooflines are low behind battlements and the masonry shows varied tooling and repairs.
Its story
The story of Enniscorthy Castle.
Philip and Maud De Prendergast and Their Norman Heirs, 1190s to the 1370s
The Anglo-Norman knight Philip De Prendergast and his wife Maud raised the first stone castle on this site in the 1190s, replacing a wooden castle their people had put up some years before. Construction commenced in the late 1190s and the Norman owners first occupied the finished building in 1203. It sits at the head of the River Slaney in the middle of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, a four-storey rectangular keep with a tower at each corner, echoing the style of other local castles such as Ferns Castle and Carlow Castle.
Philip, Maud and their Norman descendants resided at the castle for the best part of two centuries, until the 1370s.
Art MacMurrough Kavanagh Takes the Castle, 1370s to 1536
In the 1370s Art MacMurrough Kavanagh attacked Enniscorthy Castle in an attempt to regain his ancestral land, and he succeeded. He took it in battle from the last Norman knight to own it, a man whose surname was Meyler. The MacMurrough Kavanagh dynasty then held the castle for the next century and a half.
That tenure ended in 1536, when the family surrendered both the castle and the surrounding lands to Lord Leonard Grey.
Partially Burnt by Kildare, the Spenser Grant and Wallop's Refurbishment
The Earl of Kildare partially burnt Enniscorthy Castle in 1569. Twelve years later, in 1581, Queen Elizabeth I handed the land to the poet Edmund Spenser, though Spenser never took up residence there.
During the Elizabethan plantations the castle was held by Henry Wallop, who extended and refurbished it extensively. The present structure was updated in the late 1500s.
Cromwellian Occupation, 1649, and the Rebellion of 1798
Cromwellian forces occupied the castle in 1649. It was retaken by Irish Confederates and Monarchists, then lost to the Cromwellians a second time.
During the 1798 Rebellion the castle served as a prison. The United Irishmen used it as one first; after the British re-took Enniscorthy town, they used it for the same purpose.
The Roche Family and the Wexford County Museum
The castle had fallen into ruins by the early twentieth century. It was restored by P. J. Roche, who extended and reconstructed the building. In 1903 it became the private residence of the Roche family, who rented it until they vacated it in 1951.
In the years that followed it became the home of the Wexford County Museum. The castle closed for extensive refurbishment in 2006, an operation that saw the collections taken into the care of the local authority, and reopened in 2011. The museum there now traces the development of the castle and of Enniscorthy town from their earliest French-Norman origins, with a particular focus on the castle as a family home, and it still shows some of the objects from the older Wexford County Museum displays. A memorial plaque in the grounds records the details of the first flight across the Irish Sea, made by Denys Corbett-Wilson.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1590.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Enniscorthy Castle, including 2 interiors: under the gateway and entrance passage, interior of the keep's principal chamber. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Enniscorthy Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1590, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Enniscorthy Castle.
The families that held Enniscorthy Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Prendergast
Built by Philip De Prendergast, whose Norman castle was first occupied in 1203.
Kavanagh
The MacMurrough Kavanagh dynasty held the castle until 1536, when they surrendered it to Lord Leonard Grey.
Wallop
Held during the Elizabethan plantations by Henry Wallop, who extended and refurbished the castle extensively.
Roche
Private residence of the Roche family from 1903 until 1951.
