Kilclooney Tower House
Community Monuments Fund 2021
B. Doherty
Kilclooney Tower House Location
Milltown Heritage Group were successful in their application for Community Monuments Funding 2021 to carry out conservation works at Kilclooney Tower House, Milltown. This follows the preparation of a Conservation Management Plan in 2020, financed by Community Monuments Funding 2020.
Local Employment
Conservation works concentrated on stabilising the monument, and making the structure waterproof. Works were monitored under license by Archaeologist Martin Fitzpatrick, supervised by Grade 1 Conservation Architect Fergal McNamara, 7L Architects and Conservation Engineer John Britton, Kinvara Konsult Ltd. Local stone masons Galway Stone based in Claregalway Castle were the contractors.
Recorded Monument
Kilclooney Tower House is a Recorded Monument ( GA016:062001) in private ownership within a complex of archaeological monuments including a bawn, possible mill, souterrain, field systems of local and national importance. This is one of 129 castles or tower houses recorded for the County of Galway by the National Monuments Service. It is recorded as being in possession of Donell O Huiginn in 1574.
Bardic School
A poem dated in the C16th refers to seventeen poets from Ulster being educated at Kilcooney. A bardic school was a place where students, kinsmen and poets would travel to further their education and study their art. Many have been documented but physical evidence of few actually survive.
A reconstruction of the tower house and further background information is available on Milltown Heritage Group Website
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Kilcloony – The townland in which this site is located, although locally and commonly referred to as ‘Kilclooney’, spelt with an ‘e’, is actually, correctly identified as ‘Kilcloony’, on Ordnance Survey mapping and should be spelled without the letter ‘e’. ‘Kilclooney, Co. Galway’ is the name of a townland near Ballinasloe.
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