Local tradition holds that a large castle similar to Liscarrol was raised in Lohort by Prince John in 1185. Due to lack of surviving documentary evidence, some historians are reluctant to accept the tradition and certainly no trace of an early castle remains on the site now. Prince John was descended from the Plantagenet dynasty.
The earliest structure on the site was an early Gaelic settlement known to local tradition as Seanloghort. Two of their large irregular-shaped raths adjacent to the present castle lawn, survived until recent times. There are traces of an early church site and burial ground with an associated holy well Tobar Tighe Lachtnan. Little is known of the early days of the Norman presence in Lohort; the Fitzgeralds of Mallow were lords of the lands until they were under Black Rent to the McDonagh McCarthys of Duhallow by the mid-15th century .
In 1468, Thomas Earl of Desmond brought an army before the McDonagh McCarthy castle at Curra in Kanturk. He summoned Donagh Og and his Gaelic captains to meet Lord Barry Mor, Lord Roche, Maurice Fitzgerald Governor of Mallow, and other major Norman landholders in the disputed marshes area. Thomas decreed that Donagh Og would retain the lands of Lohort, Kilbolane and Knock Temple and would buy or lease Castlecor from Lord Barrymor, Donagh Og to cede the rest of the marshes to the Norman lordships and remove his black rent from Norman lands.
Donagh Og accepted the terms and secured his Lohort sword-land with good English title. By 1500, Donagh Og had built a classical Tower House or castle, apparently on the site of, and with the rubble of, the King John fortress. This is the present castle, an elegant structure of 7 floors soaring to 90’ from a base 33’x44’. It stands within a Moat and Drawbridge enclosure and was built over a deep, apparently Norman, well. Originally, it stood in a 2-acre enclosure behind a 12’ curtain wall.
Donagh Og gave the first occupancy of the new castle to Eoghan An Preachain, his younger son by Honora daughter of Cormac Laidir McCarthy Mor. Through the subsequent fratricidal successions of the McDonagh McCarthy Lordship (1501-1560) the occupancy of the castle in not clear but it seems that the younger sons of the McDonagh McCarthy families close to the Lordship, moved between Lohort, Knock Temple and Kilbolane as records of the period mention them variously as being these locations.
In the mid 1560’s the steward of the castle was an Englishman called White, a former chief tenant of Lord Barry Mor. The Whites were of a social status in 1581 for their daughter Priscilla White ‘of Lohort Castle’ to marry Tadgh McCarthy of Knock Temple, nephew of Donagh an Bhothair Lord of Duhallow. The succession of the White family in Lohort is noted through the Munster Rebellion of 1599 and into the last century when they were still living on the demesne.
The end of the McDonagh McCarthy ownership of Lohort came in 1635, not through warfare or confiscation but through failure to redeem a mortgage. The stormy Dermod McOwen McDonagh McCarthy had disputed the ownership of the Lordship of the lands with his cousin Cormac. They agreed to divide the Lordship informally and Lohort went to Cormac, with Castlecor and most of Kilbrin parish. Dermod died in 1625.
Arising from disputed ownership, in 1635 a Royal Inquisition into his estate found that most of the Lordship, including Lohort, had been mortgaged many years previously by Dermod to Sir Phillip Perceval, apparently to finance the building of Dermod’s elegant Old Court residence. Cormac disputed Perceval’s claim and remained associated with Lohort.
In 1670 Perceval was complaining to the King’s Lord Lieutenant that his tenants were still paying rent to Cormac McCarthy. In 1689 Cormac’s grandson, Colonel Charles McCarthy ‘of Lohort Castle’ raised a regiment for the Jacobite side in the Great Revolution; he was Sheriff of Cork 1689-91. In 1691, before the Battle of Aughrim, he submitted to William at Clarecastle. He took his regiment to France and with him went the last link between Lohort Castle and McDonagh McCarthy, Lords of Duhallow.
The castle has changed hands several times during the Cromwellian and Williamite Wars. The back wall was severely damaged by the cannon of Sir Hardress Waller in 1651 and was but poorly repaired. Sir Philip Perseval and his successors had lived there on and off and their Armoury housed the weapons and accoutrements of the Kanturk Yeomany. The great sword surrendered by Sir Alasdair McColla Ciotach McDonnell after the battle of Knocknanuss was also kept there.
In 1715 John Perseval, 1st Earl of Egmont refurbished the castle and restored the castle to its former stature. His son and heir Sir John Perceval, later 2nd Earl of Egmont, settled in Lohort after marriage to his first wife. In his lifetime there, he refurbished and developed the property into an English-style country estate. He set the castle enclosure within exotic arboretae and gardens, in hexagonal form extending over 220 acres. His ornate drive, 26’ wide ran 1 mile from the simple classic entrance to The Redoubt or fortified castle gateway.
Cecilstown village was also built by him and named after his first wife Catherine Cecil, 2nd daughter of the 5th Earl of Salisbury. His sons Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of England 1809-12, and Charles George Lord Arden were born and raised in Lohort. Various Egmonts occupied the castle through the next hundred years until it was sold under the Ashbourne Act in 1866.
The Wrixon-Bechers of Ballygiblin, who were agents for the demesne since 1585, bought most of it, including Cecilstown village. In 1890, the castle and demesne lands were sold on to Sir Timothy O’Brien of Dublin, a well-known international sportsman and National politician. Sir Thady, though a Catholic, earned the hatred of the local people through his harsh, overbearing treatment of them. In 1917, in a secret deal, he sold the estate to Eustace & Company, seed merchants of Cork: the local view was that he had to trade the place against monies he owed to the company for goods provided.
The property remained vacant and neglected through the War of Independence, though the castle was used as an Observation Post by patrols from Mallow Military Barracks. On the night of 7/8 July 1921, it was burned by the local IRA and completely gutted, only the stone-built barrel-vaulted ground floor survived the conflagration. The 18th century Redoubt was also fired. Subsequently, the castle and lands were bought by a local farmer who used the ground floor as a farm house. Now the 500-year old Lohort Castle, with the original massive oak door, the functioning internal well and the original massive walls cracked by heat, still stands. A mournful relic of troubled times, it broods indifferently over the peaceful countryside.
Lohort has housed many famous persons during its history, notably : Bishop Berkeley, Tomas Moore, Sir Timothy O’Brien as well the once-powerful and successful Perceval and Egmont families.