Watercastle

28 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Watercastle, from 315 m² to 106,755 m² (10.68 ha, 26.38 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary; 24 neighbouring parcels touch it.

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

No zone of a development plan covers Watercastle 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.

• 9 Jun 2026Unconditional

  Demolish old workshop and construct new workshop toilet and entrance

  Extension of duration · Laois County Council, 2639

• 5 Mar 2025Conditional

  development consisting of erecting a serviced dwellinghouse, a domestic garage store and carrying out all associated ancillary works.

  Permission, 2 homes · Laois County Council, 2560107

• 3 Mar 2025N/a

  Development consisting of erecting a serviced dwellinghouse, a domestic garage store and carrying out all associated ancillary works.

  Permission · Laois County Council, 2560103

• 15 Feb 2021Conditional

  demolish existing workshop, construct new workshop with office, toilet, new entrance and associated site works

  Permission, 1 home · Laois County Council, 2186

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

Designated sites

• Special Area of Conservation: River Barrow and River Nore SAC 002162
• Special Protection Area: River Nore SPA 004233
• Proposed Natural Heritage Area: River Nore/Abbeyleix Woods Complex 002076

Recorded monuments

• LA029-024 Castle - tower house
  Description

  Marked on the 1841 and 1906 editions of the OS 6-inch maps and on the Down Survey barony map. Reference to Barnaby or Brian Fitzpatrick living in Watercastle in the early 1600's (Carrigan 1905 vol. 2, 92). According to the History of the Queens County 'In this parish there was an old castle, which in the beginning of the eighteenth century had undergone repairs, had been enlarged, and converted into a dwelling, now called Watercastle House' (O'Hanlon and O'Leary 1907 vol. 1, 156). Situated on slight rise of ground on wet marshy land with river to the N. Present remains consist of a ruinous six-bay three-storey high eighteenth century house that has been built around a late medieval tower house. As a result the medieval tower has been incorporated into the S half of the eighteenth century house. The S wall of the tower house now acts as part of the S and N façades of the later house. The tower survives intact with the E gable protruding above the destroyed roof of the eighteenth century house, internally the the castle walls have been rendered and larger openings and new floor levels were inserted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A rectangular three-storey high tower house (ext. dims. 8.5m N-S; 10.5m E-W; wall T 2m) constructed with roughly coursed limestone rubble with base-batter visible. The original pointed limestone doorway of the castle, which is now blocked-up is located off centre to S on the W wall, and leads into a lobby area protected by an overhead murder-hole and small guard chamber (int. dims. L 1.4m; Wth 0.9m) in SW angle. Off the lobby area to the N was a mural passage (L 3.1m; Wth 0.8m) in the N wall which gave access to the main ground floor chamber that was entered through a pointed limestone doorway. Off this mural passage a spiral stairs was accessed in the NW angle from which all upper floors were accessed. The ground floor chamber (dims. 4.3m N-S; 5m E-W) was lit by three single-light windows, located in the centre of the N, E and S walls, all of which were set into large segmental arched embrasures. A narrow slit ope located off centre to S in the W wall acted as a spy-hole on the main entrance lobby area. The window in the centre of the N wall has been opened up and converted into a large doorway, while the single-light ogee headed window in the centre of the E wall has been partially damaged by the insertion of a doorway into the window embrasure in the nineteenth century. The single-light round headed window in the centre of the S wall is completely intact, both E and S limestone windows have fine punch-dressed jambstones. A large wall cupboard or aumbry (Dims. Wth. 0.9m x D 0.7m) is visible in the SW angle of the ground floor. All floors of the castle were wooden throughout with no evidence of a barrel vault. The wooden floor over the ground floor was carried on timber wall-plates which were supported on fine cut-stone corbels with punch-dressing and drafted margins typical of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. All the upper floors have been altered in the eighteenth century and the walls have been rendered over and no features are visible from the ground floor. There is no present access to the upper floors of the tower house or the eighteenth century house due to its ruinous condition. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA029-036 Enclosure
  Description

  Marked on the 1841 edition of the OS 6-inch map; a circular enclosure (max. diam. c. 25m). Situated beside the River Nore. No visible surface remains. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA029-037 Ringfort - rath
  Description

  Situated on a ridge. A subcircular area (dims. c. 44.6m NW-SE, 37m NE-SW) defined by a bank (Wth c. 2.7m, int. H c. 0.8m, ext. H c. 1.4m) and external fosse (Wth c. 3.5m). Possible original entrance at NE. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 December 2007

Architectural heritage

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

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

About 1 in 5 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

Susceptibility moderately low, low, low (inferred), on the 1:50,000 map.

Terrain model

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

Flooding

The flood maps of the Office of Public Works: floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency; Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland; both 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 Watercastle with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Laois.

Name

Watercastle · Caisleán an Uisce

Area

778,234 m² (77.82 ha, 192.31 acres)

Civil parish

Abbeyleix, and its townlands

Barony

Clarmallagh

Electoral division

Dunmore, the unit of the census

Census 2022

Dunmore electoral division: 284 people in 93 households; 90% of households own their home; 38% of homes were built since 2001; 4% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 0% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Baggottspark, Brandra, Coolcorberry, Fermoyle, Graceswood, Granafallow, Rath, Stewartsgrove

Placenames

Watercastle 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.