1900 - Faunarooska Castle

Faunarooska Castle is a name that comes up every now and then in the Peter Carrucan - Hannah Woods line. What was the connection?
At some time in the past, the farming property which included the Faunarooska Castle had passed into the hands of the Woods family. John Woods, Hannah""s father, is mentioned as residing in Faunarooska in the 1855 Griffith Valuation. It was there that Hannah was brought up, within sight of the historic keep on the family property. Presumably it was still in reasonable repair when she emigrated to Australia in 1857 and, in her last years, she remembered it like that and expressed a desire to return to Ireland and lay claim to it.
Alas, by then, it was a derelict structure that was no longer capable of habitation.
This photo, taken between 1890 and 1915, shows the keep still more or less in its entirety although missing its roof. A collapse in 1985 left it as a ruinous pile of rocks.