3 castles, from Norman keeps to the tower houses that Gaelic and Anglo-Irish families raised in their hundreds — and the ones that are now four walls and a jackdaw.
Castle Forbes is a gothic revival castellated house and demesne in Newtownforbes, County Longford, Ireland. The castle is the ancestral home of the eponymous Forbes family and still remains the seat of the Earl of Granard as of 2025.
Coolamber Hall-House is an Anglo-Norman ruin in County Longford, Ireland that is dated to the early 13th century. Possibly the residence of Thomas Nugent, 4th Earl of Westmeath, one of the commissioners for Plantation of Longford in 1620.
Granard Motte is the remains of a motte-and-bailey castle and National Monument in Granard, County Longford, Ireland.
Descriptions are Wikipedia's own opening lines, used under CC BY-SA 4.0 with a link to each article; the list and the coordinates come from the same place. Nothing here is a guide to access — many of these are private homes or stand in private fields.
What stood in Longford before anybody thought of building a keep.