Work began on Roscommon Castle in 1269 and continued in several phases. Roscommon Caste was a Royal Castle, built for the English king and fortified against the threat of Irish rebellion against the King. Roscommon Castle was repeatedly attacked by the local Irish and was in Gaelic Irish O’Conor hands for over two hundred years until 1569 when the O’Conor Don of the day surrendered. In 1578 the castle and its associated estates were granted to Sir Nicholas Malby, Governor of Connaught. He transformed Roscommon Castle from an antiquated and probably dilapidated medieval castle into a magnificent fortified Elizabethan house.

Roscommon County Council has produced a guidebook - Roscommon Castle a Visitor’s Guide - on Roscommon Castle. In Roscommon Castle a Visitor’s Guide Margaret Murphy and Kieran O’Conor chart the history and architectural development of Roscommon Castle from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. The full colour illustrated guidebook has chapters called: The History of the Castle, The Siting of the Castle, A tour of the Late Thirteeneth-Century Castle, The Late Medieval O’Conor Occupation and A Tour of the Late Sixteenth-Century Castle. The guidebook also includes two detailed historical reconstruction drawings by Daniel Tietzsch Tyler.

This guidebook is intended to be a comprehensive guide for visitors to Roscommon castle, as well as a point of reference for academics and local historians. Historic Reconstruction Drawings used in the guidebook intended to give the visitor an impression of what the castle may have been like in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Authors: Dr Kieran O’Conor is a lecturer in archaeology in NUI, Galway. Margaret MurphyMA graduated from NUIG in 2002, after writing her Masters Dissertation on the subject of Roscommon Castle. She wrote the guidebook based on the findings of her Masters. She works as a freelance archaeologist and lives in Galway.

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