Ireland · Ruin
Kilcolman Castle
Kilcolman Castle is a late-medieval Irish tower house and bawn in County Cork, built in the early 15th century and later occupied and refurbished by the poet Edmund Spenser. The structure was twice destroyed in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and thereafter abandoned; today only a standing tower and fragments of the surrounding curtain wall remain.
Its prime
1590
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1590
What Kilcolman Castle looked like in its prime.
A four-storey rectangular stone tower house of grey coursed masonry rises from low pasture beside a bog, attached to and partly enclosed by a low stone bawn (curtain) wall. The tower presents narrow vertical slit windows and a few larger window openings on upper levels, straight vertical walls with subtle weathering, and an entrance at ground level beside the remaining bawn. Surrounding landscape is open fields and hedgerows with distant low hills.
Its story
The story of Kilcolman Castle.
Kilcolman Castle was built in the 1420s by James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond, who bought the land from William, Lord Barry around 1418. A typical late-medieval tower house with a bawn, the four-storey tower contained a basement, parlour, armoury, privy, chapel, study and private rooms.
Confiscated by the Crown after the Second Desmond Rebellion of 1579–1583, the castle passed to Philip Sidney, who granted it with 3,028 acres to the poet Edmund Spenser around 1586–1587, and Kilcolman became Spenser's residence. In 1598, during the Nine Years' War, it was destroyed by the forces of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Twice destroyed in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, it was abandoned; today only the standing tower and fragments of the curtain wall remain.
Step inside
9 places to explore in 1590.
The record describes 9 distinct spots at Kilcolman Castle, including 6 interiors: tower entrance and ground floor, basement (storage), parlour and more. 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 Kilcolman 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 Kilcolman Castle.
The families that held Kilcolman Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Built in the 1420s by James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond; held until confiscated by the Crown after the Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–1583).
