Moorstown Castle is a fine old ruin situated on private land a short distance from The Apple Farm. Like many old castles, it has a very interesting past. 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 forever. 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.
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