The Irish Times

Few buildings in Ireland better illustrate the transition from medieval tower house to semifortified Palladian mansion than Portumna Castle, just south of Portumna, Co Galway. Completed about 1618, it is a large Jacobean manor which enjoys a peaceful setting with fine views to the south, overlooking Lough Derg on the Shannon. Nearby are the ruins of a Dominican Friary founded in the 15th century on the site of an earlier Cistercian chapel. Extensive conservation work has been undertaken on the castle over the past 15 years by Dúchas, the Heritage Service, whose craftsmen have returned it to a beautiful shadow of the splendour destroyed by an accidental fire in 1826, which left it in ruins and largely forgotten.