A Castle on Teeling Street, Sligo
The Discovery
In 2007, during routine extension works, archaeologists struck a stone covering an old drain right under the present Weekender office on Teeling street. When the stone was lifted an unusual type of wine bottle was found, known from its shape as an onion bottle. These onion bottles were made between 1640 and about 1720 and are very rarely found intact. So it was decided to extend the excavation to see what else might be there. The bottle turned out to be sitting beside a massive mortared stone foundation 3 metres (10 feet) in width which is shown in this picture.
Many of the buildings on the corner of Abbey St. and Teeling St. appear to use this as their foundation as it runs east and north directly under the modern buildings. At bottom right of the picture the modern wall can be seen to be sitting on similar masonry.
The Castle
The enormous width of the foundation suggests a fortified building, probably of a type known as a tower house. These tower houses were extremely common in Ireland all through the Middle Ages, it being a rather unstable place for anyone who had anything to protect. Lynchs castle on Shop street in Galway, now an AIB bank, is a good example of an urban tower house familiar to many Sligo people.
Some tower houses had projecting corners, called flankers, to allow defenders to fire along the wall faces, and this may be what we are looking at in this picture. This is the only definite evidence of a castle so far found in Sligo.
Who built this castle?
In the 19th century Woodmartin described a castle set back from the corner of Abbey and Teeling streets, and mentions it had been found earlier in the century during the digging of a drain, just like this one. He believed it belonged to the O’ Creans. More recently, historians have identified it as Jones castle.
But the truth is we cannot be sure. as there was in fact more than one castle in this area. An eyewitness description of the fighting in Sligo in the 1640’s mentions that “the enemy possessed of the Lady Jones her Castle, which was nigh adjoyneing to Andrew O’Crean his Castle”. Clearly, there were at least two castles right beside each other, and so without further investigation we cannot be sure which one we have found.
There are two possibilities. This castle was built either by the O’ Creans or Jones, families with very different origins, both of whom played a prominent part in the history of Sligo.
The O’ Creans
The O’ Creans (O’ Croidhen, Cryan) were an old Gaelic family from Donegal who were both merchants and religious in occupation. They were the most important medieval merchant family of Sligo, mentioned twice as wealthy merchants by the Four Masters in 1506 and in 1572.
The Jones
Lady Jones was the wife of Roger Jones, an Elizabethan soldier who served during the Nine Years War. He arrived in Sligo after the war in 1602, when a new English administration was being set up in Sligo.
Connections
Now, when Jones arrived in 1602 the town lay in ruins and so he appears initially to have used Holy Cross as a court-house. Soon after and nearby, he built his castle and Jones became constable of the new jail and also served as the first high sheriff and justice of the peace of the county. He had a garrison under his control and was responsible for the imposition of English law and order.
And so the castle he operated from on Teeling street is the direct ancestor of the modern Garda barracks, the solicitors offices and courthouse all of which, in both function and location, are descended from Roger Jones early English administration in the county. The post of high sheriff was only abolished in 1922
Meanwhile, in the Abbey the elderly Dominican friar Macduane was quite alone in Sligo as his life drew to a close in 1608. To those about him he confidently foretold that another Dominican would come to Sligo in time to give him the last sacraments. And sure enough, Daniel O’Crean, a young man fresh from his studies in Lisbon, arrived to comfort the old priest in his final moments.
An Irish college had been founded in 1593 in Lisbon. The O’ Creans as merchants were heavily involved in the wine trade and through their connections with Galway they traded directly with France, Spain and Portugal, England and Flanders, importing wine, iron and salt, and spices such as saffron, in exchange for fish, hides and cloth. Sligo was not as remote as we sometimes think.
Now, in an unusual twist, the two families became connected in the 1620’s with the marriage of the merchant Roebuck Crean and Jones niece Elicia and so they went into business together with Roger running a shop beside his house.
The bottle probably arrived the same way as Daniel O’ Crean, through the port. These bottles normally contained wine, but were often used as decanters on tavern counters long after the original contents had been drunk. There is mention of the lower floor of Jones castles being used as a tavern sometime around 1700. Perhaps the Town & County club continues this tradition today.
The castle appears to have been pulled down shortly after the 1798 rebellion. After it had been demolished, someone had carefully placed the bottle under the stone but of course why, when and by whom is unknown. But no doubt the person who placed the bottle was aware of the history and left it to point us in the right direction.
Postscript: The foundation has been reburied as there was no attempt to allow for it to be displayed. The current whereabouts of the onion bottle are unknown. Without a local museum, it could not be retained in Sligo.