Mionloch Castle
Mionloch Castle
About four miles up the River Corrib on the left bank of the river beside the village of Mionloch, stands the remains of the Blake’s Tutor House giving a vivid picture of what was once the Blake’s home so dear to the citizens of Galway on the four Sundays of May, when the Blakes played host to them in what the people called ‘Maying’. The house is identifiable as the site on which Thomas Coleman built a castle around 1550. He lived there in 1574 and it was still in his possession 1598. The castle passed into the hands of the Blakes early in the 1600s. We read that Sir Valentine Blake who died in 1643 was created baronet on July 10th 1622. His son Sir Thomas Blake, the second baronet who died in 1642 was the first to be styled ‘Baronet of Menlough’.
The remains of the castle which we now see as the Castle of Mionloch is really a castellated couse in the Jacobean style and family tradition says it was built in Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
Coleman’s Castle formed no part of this house; ;it probably stood at some little distance from the Blake building. The house, a Jacobean mansion, is 66 feet by 29 feed in basic plan. It is not vaulted and has very few points of resemblance with earlier high castles. The walls are battered out from 16 feet above the level of the basement floor. Sir Valentine Blake, the 12th baronet (1834-1847) erected a classical round-headed archway in front of the house. He brought a quantity of ornate stone work which he stripped from buildings then falling into decay in the City.
We are indebted to the Galway Archaeological Journal Vol. 8 (1913 – 14) for these notes.
Today (1996) everything except the four walls has long disappeared. Many of the dressed stones from the building can be found in local buildings. The grotto at Cúil Each boasts possession of a few such stones. The Mionloch Estate was divided in 1922 and all the ornate porches, stones and windows were removed.
The above history of Mionloch Castle is from Padraic Ó Laoi, History of Castlegar Parish (~1996), pp. 169-171.