In the decades preceding the 1641 Rebellion, a number of Irish landowners were building houses that tried to combine the need for spacious and luxurious living with an adequate means of positive defence. Inevitably, such houses differed from contemporary English manors in having fewer windows, high basements, musketry loops, bartizans and other defensive features. Nonetheless, many succeeded in projecting the air of a gentleman's residence, and few more successfully than Sir Ulick Burke's handsome strong house at Glinsk, probably begun around the time he was raised to the baronetage in 1628.

Glinsk was gutted by fire at an early stage and survives as an exceptionally well-preserved ruin. It has a three-bay rectangular plan of three storeys over a raised basement with an attic floor in its high gabled roof. The main entrance was at first-storey level on the south front, where the centre bay has been recessed, while the service door is in the centre of the north front basement. Both the door and narrow windows of the basement have flanking gunloops, while the main floors above have finely sculptured mullioned windows. The exact plan of the interior is unknown as there were only timber divisions, but the fireplaces were in the end walls where the stacks rise with tall, elegant shafts that are undoubtedly the best examples of their kind in Ireland. The house was provided with some machicolations, but had no proper flanking defence, though there was a bawn on the south side, of which one round flanker may still be seen.

Located 4 miles SE of Ballymoe off a minor road to Creggs village.
Access over a stile into a field. Signposted.
NGR: M 717681.
National Monument.
Key may be obtained from Mr Timothy Petit in the two-storey house near the castle.

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