castles historical down

The mightiest of the castles along the County Down coast, Dundrum was probably built by John de Courcy in the last decades of the 12th century. It is first mentioned in the historical records when it was unsuccessfully besieged in 1205, though taken by King John five years later. The upper of the two wards, on the top of the commanding hiss, is dominated by a tall, round keep or donjon with immensely thick walls, from the top of which a splendid view may be had over the sea and many parts of s...

Anglo-Norman motte-and-bailey earthwork castle with added stone tower. Fine views from top of the mound. Free access always. Clough village, at junction of A24 and A25....

When built in the mid 13th century, the castle consisted of a strong rectangular, two-storey tower with reinforced corners and a stout irregularly shaped curtain wall with rounded corner towers. Only fragments survive of the curtain wall, which was further defended outside by a rock-cut ditch, from which stone was quarried for the construction of the castle.

The fortress was stormed by the Irish in 1260 and again in 1375, but also by Edward Bruce in 1316. To make it more easily defend...

Drumena is an irregularly shaped stone fort or cashel measuring 132 ft by 108 ft, and with walls 9-12 ft thick (which were partially re-built in 1925-26). The original entrance was probably on the east side, and a confused jumble of stones in the interior may once have formed the foundations of a house. Also inside the cashel is an easily accessible T-shaped souterrain which reaches a maximum height of 7 feet. The whole complex is likely to date from the Early Christian period....

In the midst of a beautiful 700 acre estate on the shores of Strangford Lough, seven miles east of Downpatrick, stands Castle Ward - an 18th century "architectrual wonder"....

Its name - Narrow Water - shows that its site was strategically chosen to guard the narrow stretch of the river which provided Newry with access to the sea. The tower was built by John Sancky around 1560, but by 1608 it had come into the possession of Sir Arthur Magennis, and is known to have been used for industrial purposes in the 18th century. Each of the tower's three floors consists of a single room, and there is a stone vault above the first floor. The tower stands in an irregularly sh...

Kirkistown Castle built by Roland Savagh in 1622. The castle is in fact a tower house, one of the fortified private homes built from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century by local landlords often as a protection from each other. This one has the remains of a bawn round it. The Savage family were the Norman landlords of the 'Little Ardes' and they built many of these small castles. Portaferry Castle is known to be an earlier one of theirs, erected in 1500....

The Scottish baronial style castle, now a conference centre was formerly the house of the Annesley family and overlooks the large central lake. The lake is stocked with brown and rainbow trout which can be fished from April to October. A licence is required. The lake is also used for canoeing....

Audley's Castle is a 15th century tower-house which retains the name of a 16th century owner, John Audley. It is a three-storey tower with the south-east doorway on the ground floor protected by two flanking towers, and with a stone vault - with marks of its original wicker centring - roofing the first floor rather than the ground floor, which would be more usual. The tower stood in the northern corner of a bawn, now reduced to its foundations, but whose walls would have originally protected...

Well-preserved four-storey tower house which withstood a siege around 1600. Largest of cluster of castles built in Ardglass in Middle Ages to protect the port. Other tower houses at Kilclief and Strangford....