Ballybeg Castle

Ballybeg Castle, lies in a field next to the Ballybeg Priory, south of the town of Buttevant, in County Cork in Ireland.

I do not know for sure if this is a castle or not. Some sources say this is the basement of a rectangular tower house, of which the upper floors have disappeared. Others say it can't be that, mainly because there seems to be no passageway between the 'basement' and the supposed upper floors. Due to its appearance, I think, it could well have been a tower house.

Nothing is known about its history. But as it sits on the other side of the road of Ballybeg Priory and is of apparently the same kind of stonework, its history will be very closely linked to it. The priory was built in 1229 by the De Barry's, an Anglo-Norman family. It was dissolved in 1541.

At present the interior of Ballybeg Castle can not be visited but viewed through an iron gate. A bit dull ruin but worth to take a look at when you visit the much bigger ruins of the priory.

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