Two castles, one courtyard
The most interesting thing at Parke’s Castle is what’s under your feet in the courtyard. When Captain Robert Parke, an English planter, built his fortified manor here in the 1630s, he put it straight down on top of a tower house belonging to the O’Rourkes, the old rulers of Bréifne whose lands had just been confiscated by the crown. The last O’Rourke lord of the site, Sir Brian, was described by one English governor as ‘the proudest man this day living on the earth’; he resisted the crown, fled Ireland, and was hanged for treason in London in 1591. Excavations in the 1970s uncovered his tower house foundations, and the OPW left them exposed in the yard – so you can stand between the Gaelic castle and the planter’s house that replaced it.
From ruin to restoration
The manor didn’t last long as a home. It passed out of the Parke family after the captain’s death and was left to decay, its mullioned windows falling in over two centuries. The late-20th-century OPW restoration used locally quarried Leitrim sandstone and Irish oak, and it was done to stabilise and explain the building rather than to fake a pristine original – a sensible call, and one that shows in the honest mix of old fabric and new.
What to see inside
You enter through a three-storey gatehouse into a paved courtyard, well insulated from the R286 outside. The ground-floor rooms hold the exhibitions – period furnishings, dioramas and a reconstructed blacksmith’s forge under a thatched roof that shows how the estate and the local community actually worked. Beyond the buildings, look for:
- The O’Rourke foundations – the stone footings in the courtyard, proof of the medieval castle beneath.
- The sweathouse – a 12th-century structure, essentially a medieval sauna, not to be confused with a souterrain.
- The dry moat – originally fed from Lough Gill and once carrying waste from the stables, now tracing the line of the defences.
- The pigeon tower and dovecotes – set into the bawn walls of the same complex, they supplied both meat and fertiliser.
- The reconstructed well – a working illustration of how the household got its water.
Tours and the boat from Sligo
You can walk the courtyard and exhibition rooms at your own pace with the printed guide, or ask about a guided tour: these run on request for groups of up to 25, last about 40 minutes, and usually take in the audio-visual ‘Stone by Stone’, which explains how the site changed hands and shape.
The nicest way to arrive is by water. Every Wednesday from 1 July 2026, the Rose of Innisfree leaves Doorly Park Jetty in Sligo at 10.30am and reaches the castle at 11.30am for the guided tour; the boat then starts back at 12.20pm and is at the jetty by about 1.30pm. Book on 087 259 8869 or through the Rose of Innisfree website. Worth knowing before you plan around it: it’s Wednesdays only, so if the boat is the reason you’re going, check it’s sailing.
Practical information
Opening hours
- March to October: 10.00 – 18.00 (last admission 17.15)
- October to November: 09.00 – 17.00 (last admission 16.00)
Admission Adults €5.00 | Seniors €4.00 | Students and children €3.00 | Family (up to 4) €13.00 | Groups €4.00 per person
Getting there and parking The castle is on the R286, 11km from Sligo town and 7km from Dromahair. There’s free parking on site for cars and coaches, and the TFI Local Link 563 (Sligo to Dromahair) stops directly outside.
Accessibility The ground-floor exhibition rooms, courtyard and forge are wheelchair accessible and there are accessible toilets. The upper floors, wall walks and the uneven courtyard surfaces are not. Assistance dogs are welcome; other pets are not. Photography is fine on the grounds, but you’ll need permission to shoot inside the exhibition rooms.
Around the castle
Parke’s Castle sits well for a day in north Leitrim and south Sligo. The medieval Creevelea Abbey is a short drive off, and a little further out lie Sligo Abbey (about 9km) and the ancient Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery (about 12km). Dromahair itself is worth a riverside wander and has the remains of a friary. For the best of the castle, come late in the afternoon, when the low sun off Lough Gill lights the sandstone.