Smithstown

28 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Smithstown, from 717 m² to 207,113 m² (20.71 ha, 51.18 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary. 20 neighbouring parcels touch it.

Download the townland as DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings, or as GeoJSON or KML.

No zone of a development plan covers Smithstown in the national zoning. Outside zoned towns and villages, the county development plan's rural policies apply to each application.

Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.

• 25 Nov 2021Conditional

  of the change of use of part of the private dwelling house as a sessional preschool & all associated ancillary site works

  Retention · Clare County Council, 211251

• 7 Jun 2017Conditional

  to construct a dwelling house, detached garage advanced wastewater treatment system and soil polishing filter together with ancillary site works.

  Permission, 1 home · Clare County Council, 17446

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches the townland of Smithstown.

Recorded monuments

• CL015-032 Enclosure
  Description

  In an area of overgrown marshy pasture on the edge of a steep S-facing slope on the N banks of the Smithstown River c. 155m WSW of Smithstown Castle (CL015-034002-). Hachured on the 1840 and 1916 OS 6-inch maps. A collapsed and grassed-over roughly circular stone and earth enclosure (diam. 11.75m) defined by a bank (H 0.6m at S to 0.8m at N; Wth 2-6m) with intervening gaps at the ESE (Wth 1.8m) and WNW (Wth 2.1m). The bank edges are well defined except along the S where the ground drops sharply towards the river. The site is very overgrown. The following item has been uploaded: CL015-032----_01.jpg View of enclosure from S Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Eve Campbell Date of upload: 3 July 2023

• CL015-034002 Castle - tower house
  Description

  On a high rocky outcrop within a loop in the Smithstown River (c. 25m to the E; c. 85m to the S), accessed by a straight avenue (110m NNW-SSE) to the N that joins a minor road leading E to Kilfenora. Indicated and named ‘Smithstown Castle (in ruins)’ on the 1840 6-inch OS map and ‘Smithstown or Ballynagowan Castle (in ruins)’ on the 1916 ed. Depicted c. 90m E of, and within the demesne of, ‘Smithstown House’, a T-plan house with outbuildings to the rear, that has since been demolished. The castle is first mentioned in 1551, when it was willed by Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond and 1st Baron of Inchiquin, to his son Teige (Ua Cróinín and Breen 1997; Mac Mahon 1990, 29). The 1570 castle list notes that Smithtown Castle was owned by Turlough O’Brien of Fomerla, younger brother of the Earl of Thomond. Evidence suggests that it was the residence of Teige son of Murrough O’Brien, sheriff of Co. Clare in 1570, and he is noted as the owner in 1574. Teige’s son Turlough inherited the castle and died there in 1584. The castle passed to his three daughters Honoria, Slaney and Aney. In 1612, Honoria and her husband, Richard Wingfield (ancestor of the Lords Powerscourt), were in possession of the castle. Honoria continued to occupy the castle after her husband’s death in c. 1615, and in her will of 1650, she left it to her grandson Conor O’Brien of Leamenagh (Ua Cróinín and Breen 1997). A family conflict over ownership of the castle followed Conor’s death in 1651. The castle was garrisoned by Cromwellian troops in 1652. It was held by the O’Brien and Wingfield families in the second half of the 17th century (ibid. 1997), and it remained the property of the Wingfield family into the 19th century (Mac Mahon 1990, 30). Taylor and Skinner (1778, 205) noted the site as belonging to ‘Vist. Powerscourt’ and Lewis (1837, Vol. 2, 335) reported ‘at Smithstown, a seat of Viscount Powerscourt, are the ruins of an ancient castle’. According to Eugene Curry in the OS Letters c. 1839 (Comber 1997, 99) the castle was ‘inhabited within the last forty years’. Westropp (1910, 148) described it as ‘a low plain tower’, and remarked that ‘the large house that adjoined the castle has been destroyed, leaving as its most definite evidence, the weather line of its roof on the castle wall’. A rectangular tower house (8.2m N-S; 12.2m E-W) surviving to four stories, vaulted over the first and third floors, with evidence for a fifth floor under the roof. The walls are built of erratic courses of limestone with base batter. The floor plan is largely consistent throughout with a large chamber occupying the W two-thirds of the building, a small chamber in the NE corner and a spiral stair in the SE corner. A garderobe passage is found at first-floor level parallel to the arched stone vault. The walls (T at first-floor level 1.2-1.85m) are composed of roughly coursed mortared limestone rubble and are battered around the base. The imprint of the roofline of a now-demolished attached house is visible on the S gable. Sixteen cut-stone single-light windows survive in the building, seven in the E face, three in the S face, two in the W face and four in the N face. They include round-headed, flat-headed and ogee-headed examples. Two loops with foliate patterns in the spandrels can be seen in the W and E walls. The tower house is accessed via a cut-stone pointed-arch doorway in the E wall; there is no murder-hole. The door leads to a lobby (4m E-W; 1.2m N-S) with a spiral stair to the S (diam. 2m), a small chamber (2.75m E-W; 1.5m N-S) to the N and a larger chamber to the W. The main ground-floor chamber (c. 4.65m N-S; 6.6m E-W) has aumbries in the SW and NW corners. There is a robbed-out window of unclear character in the W wall and door-sized breaches in the N and S walls. The S breach would have provided access to the now-demolished house appended to the W of the tower house. The small NE chamber (c. 2.75m E-W; 1.5m N-S) has an aumbry in its NW corner and a single light in its E wall and an arched stone roof. At first-floor level, the stair led to a small chamber to the NE (2.7m E-W; 3.5m N-S) and to a lintelled passage (5.2m N-S; 1.2m E-W) leading to the garderobe (2.8m E-W; 1.2m N-S) to the N. A lintelled doorway midway along the garderobe passage gave access to a first-floor chamber (5.15m E-W; 3.75m N-S) beneath the E-W stone vault. The small chamber was lit by loops in its N and W walls (Wth 0.15m) and had an aumbry in its SW corner. The large first-floor chamber had a loop (Wth 0.15m) in its W wall. The garderobe passage was lit by loops (Wth 0.1m) in its N and S walls and had an aumbry in its W wall adjacent to the garderobe shaft within the N wall of the building. A breach in the S wall of the stairwell at first-floor level provided access to the adjoining now-demolished house. At second-floor level the stair led to a small chamber to the N (3.4m N-S; 2.7m E-W) and a larger chamber to the W (6.97m E-W; 5.2m N-S). The small chamber was lit by loops in its N and E walls with a third loop in the NE corner. The chamber also had an aumbry in its SW corner. The large chamber, identified by Ua Cróinín and Breen as the hall, was lit by windows in its S, W and N walls with a loop in the NW corner with a pair of small shot-holes at each side. A cut-stone fireplace is present in the S wall flanked by an aumbry to the W. The fireplace has a simple mantle and a low canopy resting on a pair of angular corbels. At third-floor level the stair led to a small chamber to the N (2.7m E-W; 3.6m N-S) and a larger chamber to the W (6.5m E-W; 5.2m N-S). The small chamber was lit by loops in its N and W walls with aumbries in its W and S walls. The larger chamber had a wooden floor and was lit by a single loop in the W wall (Wth 0.15m) flanked by a pair of aumbries. The castle was renovated in late 1990s. The following item has been uploaded: CL015-034002-_01.jpg Details from Risteárd Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen, The Castles and Tower-houses of Co. Clare (unpublished report). Uploaded courtesy of R. Ua Cróinín and M. Breen. References: MacMahon, M. 1990 Along the Deeley River: Kilshanny and its neighbourhood. The Other Clare 14, 27-30. Westropp, T.J. 1910 Notes on the antiquities around Kilfenora and Lehinch, Co. Clare, part III. North Munster Archaeological Society 1, 147-59. Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Eve Campbell Date of upload: 4 July 2023

• CL015-034003 Enclosure
  Description

  The Archaeological Survey of Ireland (ASI) is in the process of providing information on all monuments on The Historic Environment Viewer (HEV). Currently the information for this record has not been uploaded. To access available information for research purposes please make an appointment in advance with the Archive Unit (open Fridays 10.00 am – 5.00 pm), Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, The Custom House, Dublin 1 D01W6XO or email NMarchive@housing.gov.ie.

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands in the townland of Smithstown.

Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).

Radon

At the centre of the townland of Smithstown, about 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

The 1:50,000 map rates the landslide susceptibility here as moderately high, moderately low, low, partly inferred.

Terrain model

No LiDAR survey of the Office of Public Works covers the centre of the townland of Smithstown.

Flooding

The Office of Public Works publishes its flood maps on floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, and Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland, both under CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

No address of the register names Smithstown with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Clare.

Name

Smithstown · Baile Átha an Ghabhann

Area

1,154,939 m² (115.49 ha, 285.39 acres)

Civil parish

Kilshanny, and its townlands

Barony

Corcomroe

Electoral division

Smithstown, the unit of the census

Census 2022

161 people lived in 60 households in the Smithstown electoral division. 84% of households owned their home. 33% of homes were built since 2001. 18% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 5% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Ballytarsna, Cloongarve, Crosscornaun, Gortnaboul, Laraghakea, Lisdoony West

Placenames

Smithstown on logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland

Townlands, civil parishes, baronies and electoral divisions, National Statutory Boundaries, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. Census 2022, Small Area Population Statistics by electoral division, Central Statistics Office, CC BY 4.0. A townland is the smallest land division of Ireland, and the unit of a rural address. Old registers such as the 1901 and 1911 censuses file it under its civil parish and barony.