Ardtully House

Ardtully House lies in a field west of the village of Kilgarvan, in County Kerry in Ireland.

According to tradition the first building at this site was a 13-th century monastery which was replaced, using its stones, by a castle of the McFineen McCarthys. This castle was destroyed in the mid-17th century during Cromwell's conquest. Later the Orpen family built a mansion house here, within the remains of the old castle.

In 1847, Sir Richard Orpen Townsend demolished the earlier house and the remains of the castle, replacing it with a fine 5-bay 2-storey Scottish-Baronial style house of which we see the remains today. It had 27 rooms, a circular 3-storey battlemented corner tower on the southeast corner and a 3-storey corbeled circular turret on the east corner.

In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, Ardtully House was burned down by the IRA. It was never rebuilt.

Ardtully House can freely be visited. The ruin itself can not be entered due to the risk of falling stones. Just north of it are the remains of a walled garden. A very nice ruin.

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