Feartagar Castle
Feartagar Castle is a castle in the countryside 8.6 km north-west of Tuam, County Galway.
Five-storey Burke tower house and national monument on a hill near the River Nanny, 8 km north-west of Tuam; also called Jennings Castle.
- Kind
- Castles
- From Tuam
- 8.6 km north-west
The map does not yet record a phone number, a website or opening hours for Feartagar Castle. Anyone can add them on OpenStreetMap; this page picks the change up at the next refresh.
The story of Feartagar Castle
Feartagar stands on a hill between Kilconly and Tuam, close to the River Nanny. The Burkes built it somewhere between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries: the family descended from William de Burgh, the Anglo-Norman knight and friend of King John whose line ruled in Connacht for centuries. Cromwell's conquest dispossessed them in 1651 and the castle passed to the Blakes of Tuam. Its other name, Jennings Castle, comes from a later family.
It is a five-storey tower house on a base of twelve by ten metres, with round bartizans at each corner, a machicolation over the door for dropping things on visitors, a latrine chute, two stone stairs and a vaulted second floor. It is a national monument.
Written from Wikipedia, "Feartagar Castle" (CC BY-SA 4.0, read 2026-09-18). Facts only from those sources; the words are ours.
Feartagar Castle in pictures
Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Getting to Feartagar Castle
- From the town
- 8.6 km north-west of the Square in a straight line; it is out in the country, so allow for the roads.
- Directions from where you are
- Open the model above, tap the pin and choose “Directions here”; the route is drawn from your own position.
Around it
Other sites within 3 km: Lismiggeen (493 m), Lougharlaureen (1.1 km), Lisnacreeva (1.2 km), Moneeniska Fort (1.9 km) and Fartamore Castle (ruins) (1.9 km).
Tower houses, the castles of the Irish countryside
Most of the castles around Tuam are tower houses rather than the great fortresses the word suggests: tall stone towers built from the later Middle Ages onward to be lived in as much as defended, commanding a crossing or a stretch of good land with a small household. They first appeared in Ireland, Scotland, England and the Frisian and north Spanish coasts in the High Middle Ages and spread from there; in Scotland's borders they were the peel towers, in Italy the city towers of feuding families. A good tower house has a vaulted floor against fire, a stone stair, corner bartizans to cover the walls, and a machicolation over the door for dropping things on whoever is knocking.
Written from Wikipedia, "Tower house" (CC BY-SA 4.0); the words are ours.
Other castles around Tuam
- 1.9 km
- 9.1 km
- 13.8 km
- 15.7 km
- 17.0 km
Questions people ask
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Source record: OpenStreetMap way/1138494749, read on 2026-09-18. The street is the mapped address where there is one, otherwise the nearest named road. Distances are straight lines.