Castle Oliver

Notes:

A remarkable construction of red sandstone in a county better known for its limestone. Although built in an area of shale, conglomerate, mudstone and greywacke, it is surrounded by a belt of red sandstone. The late medieval architecture of Limerick is contained quite firmly within the limestone district, dropping off very suddenly in the siltstone and sandstone area west of Newcastle West and Foynes. Likewise, the hilly eastern fringe of the county, with its sandstones, greywacks, and mudstones is very sparse in medieval remains. Architecturally, Castle Oliver, by 27 year old York architect George Fowler Jones, is an eclectic work, more Scots Baronial than Irish, with corbelled tourelles and crow-stepped gables. The military demeanour is softened by English style mullion-and-transom windows and oriel windows, though the detailing remains severe - the windows left without dripmouldings. The round tower, with its sprocketed roof, is likewise more Scottish than Irish. If there is an Irish dimension it is in the steep battering of the walls, at their most dramatic in the porte-cochere and buttress-like entrance to the garden. Curiously, there was no attempt to distinguish the window and door trim from the walls, the stonework being all of a piece and the better for it.