At the east end of the town of Mallow and next to the left bank of River Blackwater is Mallow Castle.
It was erected between 1584 and 1598 by Sir Thomas Norreys, or Norris, Lord President of Munster, on the same site of a previous castle built here by the Roche family in the early 13th century. This castle, which was altered by the FitzGeralds of Desmond at the end of the 13th century, in turn, replaced a preceding motte and bailey.
The building erected by Norreys was an elegant and sumptuous residence. At the death of Sir Thomas the building was inherited by his daughter Elizabeth who married Sir Joseph Jephson, an English soldier and politician, at the age of 12. They had eight childern, she died at 28. The descendants of the couple were meant to occupy the castles for many centuries, but the castle hadn't been built to withstand the attacks from the enemies, in 1689 it was burned during the Jacobite War. The Jephson, rather than restoring the damaged building, preferred to convert the stables into a new residence, and the castle fell into disrepair.
The present ruins are of a long three-storey building aligned on the northeast-southwest axis. It has two hexagonal turrets at the corners of the northwest wall. Halfway along the northwest and southeast walls there are two projecting wings. The entrance is through a doorway in the northwest wing, it faces to the northeast (45°).
The inside of the castle is an empty shell, no inner walls of floors survived, apart from a fragment of wall halfway the castle's length. The walls have plenty of mullioned windows, and have battlements at the roof level.
Below the windows there are holes through which muskets could be fired.
We came here for the first time on September 22nd, 2003.
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