A castle was built at Carrignavar by Donal or Daniel McCarthy, younger brother of the first Viscount Muskerry, of the MacCarthy of Muskerry family.[5][6] It was said to have been the last fortress in Munster to fall to Cromwell.[7] His descendants (surname variously spelt McCarty or McCartie) lived there into the nineteenth century,[6][8][9] though, by 1840, little more than a square tower remained.[7] In the eighteenth century, Charles MacCarthy was a Jacobite sympathiser and patron of late Gaelic poetry; he and his poets converted, at least in form, from Roman Catholicism to the Anglican Church of Ireland to escape the Penal Laws.[10]
Carrignavar House, a castellated country house, was built beside the castle ruins in the late nineteenth century.[8] John Sheedy bought it in the early twentieth century and later sold it to the Sacred Heart Fathers, who opened Sacred Heart College (Irish: Coláiste an Chroí Naofa) secondary school there in 1950.[8][11]
^ abBurke, John (1835). "M'Carty, of Carrignavar". A genealogical and heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank, but uninvested with heritable honours. Vol. II. Colburn. pp. 610–11. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
^ abSamuel Lewis (1840). A topographical dictionary of Ireland comprising the several counties, cities, boroughs corporate, market, and post towns, parishes and villages ... : With an appendix describing the electoral boundaries of the several boroughs as defined by the act of the 2d. and 3d. of William IV. Lewis. p. 279.
^O'Donovan, John (1841). "Additional Notes B: the descent of the MacCarthys". The Circuit of Ireland by Muircheartach Mac Neill. Tracts relating to Ireland. Vol. 1. translation of a poem by Cormacan Eigeas. Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society. p. 64.
^Dickson, David (2004). "Jacobitism in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: A Munster Perspective". Éire-Ireland. 39 (3): 38–99. doi:10.1353/eir.2004.0020. ISSN1550-5162.
^"About Us". Official website. Carrignavar: Coláiste an Chroí Naofa. Archived from the original on 23 August 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
