Castles of Ireland

Some Fortress Histories and
Legends

BY

C. L. ADAMS

ILLUSTRATED BY REV. CANON LUCIUS O’BRIEN

LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1904

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{v}

INTRODUCTION

The Castles of Ireland are far too numerous for any single volume tocontain their separate histories, and all that I claim for the presentwork is that it includes epitomised accounts of those of chief interest,as well as some regarding which I had special facilities for collectinginformation. It is, I also believe, the first collection of suchrecords, and therefore I hope but the forerunner of similar works whichmay be issued in the future, so that the time will yet come when allthese interesting relics of a troubled and stormy past may be classifiedand chronicled, and the present obscurity in which the history of somany of them is shrouded be entirely cleared away.

The number of ruined castles in Ireland is always a matter of surpriseto visitors from the Sister Isle, and perhaps they help us, of lessstirring days, to realise more fully the continual state of warfare inwhich our ancestors must have lived than printed records can ever do.

These castles range in dimensions from the few blocks of protrudingmasonry on the green sward, which mark the foundation of a ruined peeltower, or the scarcely traceable line of wall which was once a fortifiedbawn, to the majestic ruins of castles like Adare with its threedistinct and separate fortifications one within the other, or royalTrim, deemed strong enough to be a prison for English princes.

Yet in the majority of cases little or nothing is known locally aboutthe builders, owners or destroyers who have{vi} left us these picturesque,if somewhat sad, mementoes of their warfaring existence. Three items ofinformation will in all probability be supplied to the enquirer—thatthey were built by King John, occupied by the Geraldines, and demolishedby Cromwell in person, and indeed if the hill from which the bombardmentwas carried out is not shown to the stranger his informant is lacking inthe general art of story-telling. In some cases the origin of thecastles is boldly attributed by tradition to the Danes, therebyunconsciously introducing the much wider controversy as to

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Castles of Ireland

INTRODUCTION

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