Castle Balfour
Castle Balfour is a castle situated in Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It sits at the edge of the parish graveyard just west of Main Street.[1] The castle is a State Care Historic Monument sited in the townland of Castle Balfour Demesne, in Fermanagh District Council area, at grid ref: H3622 3369.[2]
History
Castle-skeagh was granted to Michael, Lord Balfour by King James I and re-granted to James, Lord Balfour, from Fife, Scotland, in 1620, in the Plantation of Ulster.[3][4] In 1618/19 Captain Nicholas Pynnar reported that Balfour had begun his building at Castle-skeagh.[3] The village of Lisnaskea developed around it. The castle was altered in 1652 and damaged in 1689.[5] The last person to possess and inhabit the Castle was James Haire (1737-1833) who leased the castle from Earl Erne. James Haire and his family ceased to occupy the castle after it was destroyed by an arson-based fire in 1803. His mother, Mrs. Phoebe Haire, was killed by the fire. It is believed that the perpetrator of the fire was a member of the Maguire clan. Major conservation and restoration was undertaken in the 1960s and further conservation work was completed in the late 1990s.[5]
Evidence of an earlier ringfort indicates the area had been inhabited from very early times. In Castle Balfour Demesne, slight surface evidence for a fosse between two banks was revealed after excavation to have been 2m deep. Attempts to find the outer fosse of a bivallate ringfort revealed ‘no distinct, steep edges’ contrasting with the steeply cut inner fosse. Radiocarbon dates of 359-428 AD were found from the ringfort at Castle Balfour.[6]
Features
In 1618/19 Captain Nicholas Pynnar reported that Balfour had 'laid the foundation of a bawne of lime and stone 70 ft square, of which the two sides are raised 15 ft high. There is also a castle of the same length, of which the one half is built two stories high and is to be three stories and a half high’. Castle Balfour was a long, rectangular three storey building, on a north-south axis, the main block being 26m by 8m.[3] It had a square wing to the east and west and a later rectangular block on the northern end.[7] It has the style of a Scottish castle and the building is thought to be the work of Lowland Scots masons.[8] The surviving castle is in a T plan with an entrance with gun-loops. The castle has vaulted rooms and a kitchen with fireplace and oven on the ground floor, main dwelling rooms on the first floor and corbelled turrets with gun slits.[4][5]
See also
References
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External links
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