Leamaneh Castle

Leamaneh's tower house, a plain five-storey structure, was raised around 1480 to 1490, probably by Toirdhealbhach Donn Ó Briain of the O'Brien family, one of the last of the High Kings of Ireland and a direct descendant of Brian Boru. The name is thought to derive from the Irish léim an éich, "the horse's leap", or léim an fheidh, "the deer's leap". In 1543 Toirdhealbhach's son Murrough surrendered his title of King to Henry VIII and was created 1st Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin in return. Murrough gave Leamaneh to his third son, Donough, in 1550; Donough was hanged in Limerick in 1582 as a rebel.

In 1639 Donough's grandson Conor O'Brien married Máire Nic Mhathúna, daughter of Sir Torlach Rua MacMahon, Lord of Clonderlaw, and Lady Mary O'Brien, daughter of the third Earl of Thomond. Known from her red hair as Máire Rua, "Red Mary", she had already been widowed once: her first husband, Daniel O'Neylan of Dysert O'Dea Castle, died young and left her his estate and a £1,000 fortune, which she and Conor used to build a four-storey mansion onto the tower house, part of which was demolished to make way for it around 1648. Máire accompanied Conor on raids against English settlers, and in 1651 he was mortally wounded fighting for the Royalists at Inchicronan, near Crusheen. She is said to have driven immediately to Limerick afterwards and offered to marry any Cromwellian officer who would take her hand, to save the estate from forfeiture — though other versions of the story hold that she did not remarry until 1653, two years after Conor's death.

General Ludlow, who commanded the Parliamentary forces at Inchicronan, went on to conduct counter-insurgency operations across the Burren. Of Leamaneh he recorded finding it "indifferent strong, being built with stone and having a good wall about it," and that his men "put a garrison into it and furnished it with all things necessary." Máire Rua's third husband, Cornet John Cooper, was a Cromwellian soldier through whose marriage to her the estate was kept out of forfeiture; under the law of the time he thereby owned it. Cooper left the army and speculated in land and property, but later ran into financial difficulty and mortgaged the Leamaneh estate to repay his debts. Cromwellian troops were stationed on and off at Leamaneh through the 1660s. Máire Rua's son Donagh — Sir Donat after 1686 — found the tower and manor damaged, but remained there until 1684 or 1685, when he moved the family seat to the larger Dromoland Castle near Newmarket-on-Fergus.

Unlike his Catholic-raised half-siblings from Máire Rua's first marriage, Sir Donat was brought up Protestant and became, by report, the richest commoner in Ireland. He built a toll road, known as Sir Donat's Road, connecting Kilnaboy and Leamaneh; its flanking stone walls survive in places, though the toll gate houses have since been demolished. He served as Sheriff of Clare in 1690 and sat as MP for County Clare from 1695 to 1713, dying in 1717; by 1678 the estate he had built up ran to more than 10,000 acres.

Leamaneh passed through various occupants before falling into ruin at the end of the 18th century. The barbican-like gates at its entrance were moved to Dromoland Castle in 1906 or 1908 by Lord Inchiquin, where they remain; the finest of its fireplaces was relocated to the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis. What survives today is the tower house, its arrow-slit loops, and the four walls of the adjoining mansion, whose mullioned and transomed windows shrink storey by storey to create an illusion of greater height. Traces of the outbuildings and the walled deer park can still be made out. Unmaintained and in poor repair, the ruin stands on privately owned farmland in the Burren and is not open to visitors.