Kanturk

Kanturk lies in the country of Duhallow, where the Allow and Dalua rivers meet. Above the town stands the unfinished fortified house known as Kanturk Castle, built for the MacDonagh MacCarthys, lords of the district. Its tall corner towers and carefully worked windows combine the form of a defensive house with the ambitions of a substantial residence. Architectural evidence places its construction in the early seventeenth century. The MacCarthys lost their lands in the 1650s, and the great house was never completed.