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Featured in Heritage in Stone 6^th^ Nov, 2008.
Featured in Ireland 8^th^ Nov, 2008.

Carrigafoyle Castle – built by Conor Liath O’Connor-Kerry in the 1490s, and considered one of the strongest of Irish fortresses – was a large tower house, of the type particularly common across the north of the province of Munster. It stood on a rock in a small bay off the Shannon estuary, and its name is an anglicisation of the Irish, Carraig an Phoill (“rock of the hole”).

The castle was referred to as the guardian of the Shannon, because of its strategic command of the shipping lanes that supplied the trading city of Limerick, some 20 miles (32 km) upriver. The bay at Carrigafoyle was shielded from the estuary on the northern side by a wooded island. Within the bay, the castle-rock was defended on the west and south sides by a double defensive wall: the inner wall enclosed a bawn, and surrounding this was a moat, which was covered on three sides (the east lay open) by the outer wall, where a smaller tower stood. The tower-keep itself was 86 ft high, and the precipitous sides of the castle-rock were layered with bricks and mortar. At high tide, the walled landing within the moat was capable of accommodating a ship of 100 tons displacement. Wikipedia