| Lackeen Castle | |
|---|---|
| Native name Caisleán Leac Fhinn (Irish) | |
 Tower house at Lackeen, County Tipperary | |
| Type | Tower house |
| Location | Abbeville,Lorrha County Tipperary, Ireland |
| Coordinates | 53°05′19″N8°04′26″W / 53.0886°N 8.0739°W /53.0886; -8.0739 |
| Built | 16th century |
| Architectural style | Norman |
| Official name | Lackeen Castle |
| Reference no. | 378 |
  Location of Lackeen Castle in Ireland | |
Lackeen Castle, atower house within abawn built in the 12th century as aKennedy stronghold (rebuilt in the 16th century). The castle is anational monument in state ownership and is located in the townland ofAbbeville near toLorrha inCounty Tipperary,Ireland. It is occasionally open to the public. Close by, standsLackeen House dating from around 1730.[1][2]
It was at Lackeen Castle that theLorrha Missal, which is strictly speaking asacramentary rather than amissal, was found. An Irishilluminated manuscript written mainly inLatin with someGaelic in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably after 792. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery. It is also known as the "Stowe" Missal as it once belonged to theStowe manuscripts collection formed byGeorge Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham atStowe House. When the collection was bought by the nation in 1883, it and the other Irish manuscripts were handed over to theRoyal Irish Academy in Dublin, where it remains, catalogued as MS D II 3.[3] Thecumdach orreliquary case which up to this point had survived together with the book was later transferred, with the rest of the Academy's collection of antiquities, to theNational Museum of Ireland (museum number 1883, 614a). The old story was that the manuscript and shrine left Ireland after about 1375, as they were collected on the Continent in the 18th century,[4] but this appears to be incorrect, as they were found here at Lackeen Castle in the 18th century.[5][6]