Ireland · Restored
Redwood Castle
Caisleán Choillte Rua
Redwood Castle is a Norman tower house near Lorrha in County Tipperary, Ireland, built around 1200 and long held by the Mac Aodhagáin (Egan) family as a seat and school of learning. It was burned and confiscated c.1650, lay as a ruin for centuries, and was purchased and renovated in 1972; it remains a privately owned, protected structure that opens to the public at times.
First raised
1210
Its prime
1600
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1600
What Redwood Castle looked like in its prime.
A tall, rectangular four-storey stone tower house with a pronounced battered base and relatively flat facades punctured by small rectangular mullioned windows and narrow arrow slits. The upper corners show corbelled round bartizans and crenellated parapets; one gabled roofline is visible behind the parapet. Walls are dressed local sandstone with a warm yellow-brown colour and rough tooling. The castle stands alone on a low rise in open farmland with a gravel approach.
Its story
The story of Redwood Castle.
Normans, then the Mac Aodhagáin, c. 1200–1350
The Normans built Redwood Castle near Lorrha in County Tipperary around 1200 and held it for roughly a century and a half. About 1350 the Mac Aodhagáin, a name carried into English as MacEgan, Egan and Keegan, were installed on the lands; the castle is known equally as Egan Castle, or Caisleán Choillte Rua.
The Brehon School and the Cromwellian Burning, 1350–1650
Hereditary Brehons, which is to say lawyers, the Mac Aodhagáin set up a school of learning at Redwood and paid for it out of the family purse for several hundred years. The castle was enlarged and renovated more than once, with considerable work from 1350. Behind the original thick stone walls it kept a murder-hole of the sort common in Irish fortifications of the period, and a Sheela na gig, which is a good deal less common.
The (Mac)Egan families held Redwood in unbroken occupation and ownership until about 1650, when it was confiscated and burned at the time of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
Three Hundred Years of Ruin, and the Egan Return, 1650–2008
The site lay in ruin for more than 300 years, with only the thick exterior walls standing, until Michael J. Egan, a County Mayo lawyer, bought the building and renovated it in 1972. It remains a private residence, though the terms of the Department of Finance heritage and cultural tax relief require it to open to the public at times during the summer months, and it is a protected structure, reference S329, on the North Tipperary list. Clan Egan, which holds rallies in different countries typically every two years, gave the Irish rallies of 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 segments at Redwood, described as the clan's ancestral home.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1600.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Redwood Castle, including 2 interiors: entrance passage with murder-hole, mac aodhag e1in school 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 Redwood Castle with AI to explore it.
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Clans who held Redwood Castle.
The families that held Redwood Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Egan
Held by the Mac Aodhagáin (Egan) family from c.1350 until confiscated and burned c.1650; repurchased and restored by Michael J. Egan in 1972.
