THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 46. | SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1841. | Volume I. |
DANGAN CASTLE, COUNTY OF MEATH.
The ruins of Dangan Castle, situated about two miles ofthe village of Summerhill, in the county of Meath, standin the centre of an extensive demesne, once richly wooded,and within which, formerly spread the placid waters of a smallbut handsome lake, since drained. The grounds have beenalmost entirely deprived of their ancient timber, but still retainsome traces of their former beauty. The remains ofthis once noble mansion, of which our engraving representsthe rere, consist of a massive keep, which, with outworks longsince destroyed, formed the ancient fortress: attached to thisis the mansion built in the Italian style, the front of whichis surmounted by a heavy and richly-moulded cornice. Ofthis part of the building (apparently erected about the beginningof the last century) nothing but the outer walls remain,and the interior space, once formed into ample hulls andchambers, has been converted into a flower garden.
It would perhaps be impossible now to determine with anydegree of certainty the age to which the original erection ofthis castle should be referred, its ancient architectural peculiaritieshaving been completely destroyed in the endeavourto make it harmonize with the buildings of more recent erection,which have been appended to it, and the property havingchanged masters so often; but it is doubtless of no small antiquity.
Dangan was anciently part of the possessions of the Fitz-Eustacefamily, who were long distinguished for loyalty andvalour, as a reward for which the title of Baron of Portlesterwas bestowed upon Rowland Fitz-Eustace in the year 1462,by King Edward IV. In the fifteenth century it came into thepossession of the Earl of Kildare, by marriage with Anne, thedaughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas Fitz-Eustace of Castle-martin;but in the same century a daughter of this earlmarried Christopher Plunket, son of the Baron of Killeen, andin her right he succeeded to this and several other estates.[1]
Dangan afterwards (but at what time we are uncertain)became the property of the De Wellesleys or Westleys, aliasPosleys, a family of the greatest antiquity and of Saxon origin,who had settled in the county of Sussex in England, one ofwhom was standard-bearer to King Henry II., in which capacityhe accompanied that monarch into Ireland, and was rewardedfor his services with large grants of lands in thecounties of Meath and Kildare. From this illustrious ancestorsprang a numerous and respectable family, who receivedseveral distinguished marks of royal favour: and we find thatin the year 1303 “Wulfrane de Wellesley and Sir Robert Percivalwere slain the second day before the calends of November”fighting against the Irish; and that John de Wellesley,who received from King Edward II. a grant of the custody ofthe Castle of Arden, was the first of the family created a Baronof Parliament, these honours being conferred on him as a rewardfor having in the year 1327 overthrown the Irish of Wicklowin a battle in which their leader David O’Toole was takenprisoner.
But it is the modern, not the ancient history of Dangan Castle,which gives to it a more than ordinary degree of interest.Within those now silent chambers and tottering walls, on the1st of May 1769, the gr