Towards the close of the year these charges became so serious that Donough O’Brien was deprived of his possession.
The castle was in the hands of Brien Duff O’Brien, chieftain of Pobblebrien, in 1590, and is described as being very strong and “a most dangerous place if the enemy were seized thereof.”
Donough O’Brien is mentioned as of Carrigogunnel in 1607, yet Brien Duff O’Brien surrendered his possessions and the castle to the Queen and received a patent for the same. He was knighted, and died in 1615.
Daniel O’Brien forfeited the castle and lands for taking part in the rebellion of 1641. Charles II. granted Carrigogunnel and four plowlands to Michael Boyle, Lord Archbishop of Dublin.
In Thomas Dineley’s Journal he states that it belonged to His Royal Highness, and was at the time rented by the Primate and Chancellor of Ireland.
Archdale says that it at one time belonged to the Knights Templars.
In 1691, during the second siege of Limerick, after the battle of Aughrim, it was garrisoned by a Jacobite ward of a hundred and fifty men. Baron Ginle sent a strong party and four guns, under the command of Major-General Scravemore, to summon the castle, which was relinquished without a blow. An historian of the time, commenting upon this, says: “Which seems to have been rather from want of instructions what to do than courage to defend it; for, to give the Irish their due, they can defend stone walls very handsomely.”
The garrison were marched as prisoners of war to Clonmel, and the following month both the Castle of Carrigogunnel and Castle Connell were blown up. Dean Story received £160 to purchase gunpowder for their demolition.
During the Whiteboy disturbances frequent meetings were held amid the ruins.
Mr. and Mrs. Hall relate at length a sad tradition about the daughter of a Palatine who was in love with one of the conspirators, and whose father, having tracked her to the ruins, was only saved from being put to death by her lover, whom she shortly afterwards married against her parents’ wish.