The Problem: Ten Sources That Are Really Two
The standard account runs like this. Randal Hurley built the castle in 1585 and carved the date, with his initials and those of his wife Catherine, in a window of the upper chamber. His family held it until the rebellion of 1641, when it was forfeited and passed to the Crofts. It appears, in almost these words, on the Office of Public Works' heritage page, on Wikipedia, on local-history and tourism sites, in genealogy trees and in blog posts. Read side by side, they seem to confirm one another.
They mostly do not. Trace the sentences back and nearly all of them lead to one of three nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers:
- Samuel Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), for the 96-foot height, the carvings and the 1585 inscription;
- George Bennett, History of Bandon (1862; enlarged 1869), for “built in 1585,” Randal's death in 1631, and the local legends;
- the anonymous Cork Journal article of 1905–06, Some Account of the Family of O'Hurly, for the family line and the floor-by-floor description of the building.
Later writers restated these, sometimes word for word. The schoolchildren who wrote about the castle for the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection in the late 1930s copied the 1906 article nearly verbatim. Ten web pages saying “built by Randal Hurley in 1585” therefore carry the weight of perhaps two sources, not ten. Some of them also carry errors that crept in along the way.
Underneath the retellings, a small body of independent evidence does survive. Some of it is contemporary with Randal Hurley himself, and some of it has never been part of the popular account. This history is built on that layer.
Three Layers of Evidence
Every claim in this history is assigned to one of three layers, marked by a tag where it matters:
- Documented
- Evidence made at or near the time of the events, or the building itself: the castle's fabric and carved date stone, a map, a pardon, a patent, an inquisition, a land survey. This evidence can be misread, but it was not shaped by later storytelling.
- Interpretation
- A historian's or archaeologist's reading of the documented layer: for example, that the tower is older than its 1585 date stone, or that the initials “R.M. C.C.” stand for Randal Muirhily and Catherine O'Cullane. These readings are often well founded, but they are arguments, and they can disagree.
- Tradition
- What families and neighbours said, however long they said it: the tally sticks, the seven sons at one birth, Crohoore a Gunna and his eight-foot gun. Tradition is valuable evidence of memory and belief, and it sometimes preserves a real event in distorted form. It is recorded faithfully here, but it is never treated as proof.
A claim does not move up a layer because it is repeated often or printed in a respected journal. It moves up only when someone points to the evidence behind it.
Where the Familiar Account Comes From
The table below lists every source examined so far, oldest first, with what each contributes and what it appears to rest on. Each will get its own section in Part II.
| Source | Date | What it contributes | What it rests on | Layer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contemporary records | ||||
| Jobson's map of Munster | c. 1584 | “Benecarick Castle” shown on the map | Surveyor's own record | Doc. |
| Fiants of Elizabeth, nos. 4488 & 4493 | July 1584 | Pardon to “Randal oge Hurley of Ballinacarriga castle” | Chancery warrant, known from the printed calendars | Doc. |
| The castle's date stone | 1585 | “1585” and “R.M. C.C.” carved in the upper chamber | The building itself | Doc. |
| Fair patent | 19 Dec 1615 | Fair granted to “Ranell Oge Hurley, gent.” | Patent rolls of James I, as quoted in 1906 | Doc. |
| Inquisition at Bandon | 16 Sep 1631 | Randal's death; his son Randal Oge succeeds | Known through Bennett and the 1906 article | Doc. |
| Youghal sessions; Down Survey; Book of Distribution | 1642; 1650s | Outlawry of Randal Hurly and his son; “Ard-Eah als. Ballincarrigg” held by Randall oge Hurley, granted to Richard Dashwood | Government land records, printed in the 1906 article | Doc. |
| Antiquarian and local histories | ||||
| Dublin Penny Journal | 1834 | Mass held in the castle hall until 1815; a colourful history that Roaringwater Journal calls “highly improbable” | Not yet examined | Trad.? |
| Lewis, Topographical Dictionary | 1837 | Height (96 ft), carvings; founder “Randal McCarty and his wife Catherine Collins”; tower “probably of the 12th or 13th century” | Unstated; probably local correspondents | Interp. |
| D'Alton, Illustrations… of King James's Irish Army List, “Lieutenant John Hurly” | 1855 | Outlawry of 1642 naming “Randle Hurley and Randle Hurley Oge of Ballynacarrig”; de Courcy (Kinsale) marriages; the Knocklong pedigree | Outlawry records; Lodge's Peerage; the “Hurly Manuscript Pedigree Book” (the Kerry family's own manuscript) | Doc. / Interp. |
| Bennett, History of Bandon | 1862 / 1869 | “Built… in 1585”; death in 1631 from the inquisition; the tally-stick and seven-sons legends | The inquisition, plus local oral tradition (“if what we have been told is correct”) | Interp. / Trad. |
| Some Account of the Family of O'Hurly, JCHAS | 1905–06 | Family line; full description of the castle; Crohoore a Gunna; outlawry and grants; Gillman's ground plan | Gillman's 1896 site visit and notes, family papers, Bennett, printed records | All three |
| Twentieth-century and modern | ||||
| Healy's notebooks, “Castles in County Cork” | c. 1937 | “Built by Randal Oge Hurley at a noted pass”; garrisoned in 1641 | Smith (1750) and Lewis | Interp. |
| Schools' Collection (Kilmeen; Macroom) | 1937–38 | Castle descriptions | Copied largely from the 1906 article | — |
| Collins, two articles in JCHAS | 1951 | Cites the 1584 Fiants directly; records a tradition that Randal's mother was an O'Crowley | The printed Fiants; oral tradition, which he flags as unreliable | Doc. / Trad. |
| Samuel, Tower Houses of West Cork (PhD, UCL) | 1998 | Site-by-site survey; links the 1584 pardon to the tower's completion | Field survey, the 1905–06 article, Gillman, Ó Murchadha (1985), the Archaeological Inventory | Interp. |
| OPW, Wikipedia, local-history & blog sites | 2000s– | The standard short account; some raise the possibility of an earlier McCarthy tower | Mostly Lewis, Bennett and the 1906 article, restated | Interp. |
Two things stand out. First, the contemporary records in the top group barely appear in the popular account. Most reach print only through the 1906 article or Collins's 1951 notes, and none of the modern web pages cites them. Second, several of the best-known “facts” come from a single antiquarian with no stated source. For example, the forfeiture to the Crofts sits awkwardly beside the Book of Distribution, which names Richard Dashwood as grantee of Ballinacarriga itself. That conflict is taken up in Section 19.
How Each Section Is Organized
The source sections in Part II follow the same pattern:
- The source: what it is, when and by whom it was made, and where it can be seen today.
- What it says about the castle and the Hurleys, quoted where possible, with page or folio references.
- Where it came from: the author's own sources, stated or inferred.
- What agrees and what conflicts with the other sources.
- Verdict: which layer its claims belong to, and how far they can be relied on.
- Historical context: what was happening in Carbery, Munster or Ireland at the time that helps explain the record.
Part III then takes the disputed questions one at a time: when and by whom the tower was built, Hurley or McCarthy, Randal's family, and the forfeiture. It sets the evidence from Part II side by side. Part IV gathers the legends, a single sourced timeline, and a guide for anyone citing Randal Oge Hurley on a family-tree profile.