Dunseverick Castle
| Dunseverick Castle | |
|
County Antrim | |
|---|---|
| |
| Type: | castle |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | C98714467 |
| Location: | 55°13’52"N, 6°23’42"W |
| History | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | In ruins |
| Owned by: | National Trust |
Dunseverick Castle stands on the north coast of County Antrim in the townland of Feigh, near the small village of Dunseverick and the Giant's Causeway. Little remains of the castle today but small, romantic ruins.
It stands on a cliff-bound peninsula overlooking the rolling Atlantic seas. Dunseverick Castle and the peninsula on which it stands were given to the National Trust in 1962 by local farmer Jack McCurdy. The Causeway Cliff Path also runs past on its way to Dunseverick Harbour to the east and to the Giant's Causeway to the west.
The castle and earthworks are Scheduled Historic Monuments.
History
There is inevitably a St Patrick legend, this one that Patrick visited the place in the 5th century AD and here Olcán, a local man who later became a Bishop of Ireland.[1] The original stone fort that occupied the position was attacked by Viking raiders in 870 AD.
In the later part of the 6th century AD, Dunseverick was the seat of Fergus Mor MacErc (Fergus the Great), who was King of Dalriada and brother of the High King of Ireland, Murtagh MacErc. From here in 500 AD, it is said, the Stone of Destiny, Lia Fail, was taken from Ireland and by some accounts Murtagh lent it to Fergus so that he could be crowned in the Hebrides, to which the King of Dalriada had expanded his kingdom; the Stone of Scone is said to be this very coronation stone.
The O'Cahan family held it from circa 1000 AD to circa 1320 AD, then regained it in the mid-16th century, and the last of them to have the castle was Giolla Dubh Ó Catháin, who left it in 1657 to settle in the Craig/Lisbellanagroagh area, where they dwelt by the name of McCain or O'Kane.
The castle was captured and destroyed by General Robert Munro in 1642[2] and his Cromwellian troops in the 1650s, and today only the ruins of the gatelodge remain. A small residential tower survived until 1978 when it eventually surrendered to the sea below.
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Dunseverick Castle) |
References
- ↑ "North Antrim". North Antrim website. http://www.northantrim.com/dunseverick.htm.
- ↑ "General Robert Munro". http://www.northantrim.com/GeneralMunro.htm.