Be this, however, as it may, it is certain that a _Cahir_ or stone fort occupied the site of the present castle in the most remote historic times, as it is mentioned in the oldest books of the Brehon laws; and the Book of Lecan records its destruction by Cuirreach, the brother-in-law of Felemy Rechtmar, or the Lawgiver, as early as the third century, at which time it is stated to have been the residence of a female named Badamar. Whether this _Cahir_ was subsequently rebuilt or not, does not appear in our histories as far as we have found; nor have we been able to discover in any ancient document a record of the erection of the present castle. It is stated indeed by Archdall, and from him again by all subsequent Irish topographers, that Cahir Castle was erected prior to the year 1142 by Conor-na-Catharach O’Brien, king of Thomond. But this is altogether an error. No castle properly so called of this class was erected in Ireland till a later period, and the assertion of Conor’s having built a castle at Cahir is a mere assumption drawn from the cognomen _na-Catharach_, or of the Cahir or Fort by which he was known, and which we know from historical evidences was derived not from this Cahir on the Suir, but from a Cahir which he built on an island in Lough Derg, near Killaloe, and which still retains his name. The true name of the founder of Cahir Castle, and date of its erection, must therefore remain undecided till some record is found which will determine them; and in the meantime we can only indulge in conjecture as to one or the other. That it owes its origin, indeed, to some one of the original Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, there can be little doubt, and its high antiquity seems unquestionable. As early as the fourteenth century, it appears to have been the residence of James _Galdie_ (or the Anglified) Butler, son of James, the third Earl of Ormond, by Catherine, daughter of Gerald, Earl of Desmond--whose descendant Thomas Butler, ancestor to the present Earl of Glengal, was advanced to the peerage by letters patent, dated at Dublin the 10th November 1543 (34 Henry VIII.) by the title of Baron of Cahir. In the subsequent reigns of Elizabeth and the unfortunate Charles I, Cahir Castle appears as a frequent and important scene in the melancholy dramas of which Ireland was the stage, and its history becomes a portion not only of that of our country generally, but even in some degree of that of England.