|

Moorstown Castle is situated on private land a
short distance from The Apple Farm.
The following history of Moorstown Castle was written by Patrick
C. Power.
Moorstown is a townland near Cahir. Here stands the remains of a
towerhouse or little castle, which was built, in the 15th century
by the Keatings. The Keatings were part of the invasion forces,
which came with the Anglo-Normans to Ireland in the 12th century.
The name is Welsh in origin and stresses the fact that many of
those who settled in Ireland during that period came from Wales
and were of mixed Norman, Welsh and English ancestry. The Keatings
held the manor of Shanrahan but by the 16th century they had
acquired land around Cahir and were henchmen of the Earls of
Ormond. A document exists from the 15th century, which describes a
leading member of the Keatings as “chief of the lord’s kernty”
i.e. chief of the Earl of Ormond’s kerns or household troops.The
builder of Moorstown Castle may have been James Keating, who is
described in 1652 as of Ballynamona, an Irish version of
Moorstown, (móin in Irish long ago meant simply pasture moor and
not turf or peat). In the wars of the 16th century the Keatings
and all the old aristocracy of their type had plenty to occupy
themselves. The insecurity of the times dictated the building of a
defensible dwelling-house. At Moorstown this took the form of a
strongly built circular tower and a courtyard or bawn surrounded
by a high stone wall. As well as this a towered gateway was also
built. All of these buildings still stand in a fair state of
preservation.
After the beginning of the 17th century the Keatings of Moorstown
were seriously short of money. This lead to the owner, Richard
Keating, seeking a large loan from a money-lender, Sir Robert Cox
of Bruff, Co. Limerick, an Englishman who had settled in Ireland.
Cox gave Keating £300 in exchange for a mortgage on the castle
and lands. As it happened, Keating never redeemed his property
later. The terrible wars of the period 1642 to 1651 gave Catholic
landowners such as Keating a time of security and freedom, but
Cromwell's campaign ended all that and destroyed their power for
ever. The Cox family became the full owners of Moorstown and the
Keatings never regained possession. When a complete survey of
Irish land was made in the 1650s Moorstown was described as
follows, “ ... two little orchards fenced with ditches of
quicksetts in one whereof are some ash trees and likewise some
cabins in the said Towne”. This is a reference to the little
village around the castle at that time.In 1678 Frances Cox, a
daughter of Sir Robert Cox, married Godfrey Greene, who was a
retired officer in the army of Charles 1. Greene lived at
Kilmanahan. He did not enjoy his new acquisition for long because
he died in 1678. His son John succeeded him and years afterwards,
in 1735, exactly a hundred years after the Keatings lost
Moorstown, his son Godfrey was killed in a duel. The duel had its
origins in the loss of the land to the Cox family. Richard Keating
of Nicholastown fought with young Greene and killed him.
The Greenes lived in Moorstown till 1798. A descendant of John’s,
yet another Godfrey Greene, died there in April 1798. He had been
Member of Parliament for Dungarvan, as well as Accountant-General
to the Court of Chancery. He never married. His brother, John
survived him by six months and died in the castle. He was the last
of the Greene family to live there. He had been an ardent promoter
of the linen trade in Ireland but his son Robert, not only did not
live at Moorstown, but lived in India where he died in Calcutta in
May 1818.The Greene family severed its connection with Moorstown
in 1855. on the 7th of July of that year the Landed Estates Court
sold the castle and land to pay debts incurred by the owners. It
was ironical that it should end this way, when we consider how the
Keatings lost their property in the first place. The buyer was
Richard Grubb of Cahir.
The castle or towerhouse at Moorstown is a circular building. This
type of castle is not very common in Ireland. The commonest type
is the square or rectangular building. The fine gate-house is
rectangular and in a fair state of preservation, like the other
building. They are built of limestone. Near the towerhouse and
against the surrounding wall are the remains of a dwelling house,
which may have been built in the 18th century by the Greenes.
|