Athlumney Castle () is a

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

and

fortified house A fortified house or fortified mansion is a type of building which developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, generally with significant fortifications added. During the earlier Roman Empire, Roman period it was common for wealthy landowner ...

and a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a sp ...

Navan Navan ( ; , meaning "the Cave") is the county town and largest town of County Meath, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is at the confluence of the River Boyne and Leinster Blackwater, Blackwater, around 50 km northwest of Dublin. At the ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The site remains accessible to the public; to enter, visitors need to place a deposit at the nearby B&B and receive a key.

Location

Athlumney Castle is located on Convent Road, to the southeast of

town centre, east of the Boyne.

History

Athlumney overlooks a key strategic point, where the Leinster Blackwater drains into the Boyne. The place name derives from the Irish for "Loman's ford", referring to Lommán of Trim. Archaeological digs uncovered an Early Christian

souterrain ''Souterrain'' (from French ', meaning "subterrain", is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the European Atlantic Iron Age. These structures appear to have been brought northwards from Gaul d ...

. The

motte A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortificati ...

at Athlumney was built in the years after 1172 when

Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, 4th Baron Lacy (; before 1135 – 25 July 1186), was an Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman landowner and royal office-holder. He had substantial land holdings in Herefordshire and Shropshire. Following his participation in ...

granted the title of Baron Skryne to his ally

Adam de Feypo Adam de Feypo is first mentioned in ''The Red Book of the Echequer 1166, p283 (England)'' as being one of the knights of Hugh de Lacy in Herefordshire, England. He was possibly a castellan of one of the de Lacy castles on the Welsh border. As the ...

; he in turn granted Athlumney to a relative Amauri de Feipo, who built the motte. The older part of Athlumney Castle is a

which was built in the 15th century. The newer part of the castle is a Tudor-style

attached to the tower. This was built in the late 16th century or early 17th century. It had large corridors and its ground floor kitchen provided heat for the first floor rooms where the Lord lived. The doorway is cut limestone and there is an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

on its eastern wall. In 1649 during

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

's Siege of Drogheda, the

Maguire The Maguire ( ) family is an Irish clans, Irish clan based in County Fermanagh. The name derives from the Goidelic languages, Gaelic , which is "son of Odhar" meaning 'Wikt:sallow, sallow' or 'pale-faced'. According to legend, this relates to the ...

(Mac Uidhir) who held Athlumney Castle burned it down to prevent Cromwell taking possession of it. The last Lord of Athlumney was Sir Launcelot Dowdall. The Dowdalls lost their land during the Cromwellian Plantation and got it back under Charles II. They backed the Catholic James II and Launcelot Dowdall was High Sheriff of Meath in 1686. After James' defeat at the

Battle of the Boyne The Battle of the Boyne ( ) took place in 1690 between the forces of the deposed King James II, and those of King William III who, with his wife Queen Mary II (his cousin and James's daughter), had acceded to the Crowns of England and Sc ...

(which took place just 19 km / 12 mi from Athlumney Castle), Dowdall left for France and supposedly burned the castle down again. The property later belonged to the Somerville family of Kentstown who took the title of Baron Athlumney.

Building

The older part of Athlumney Castle is a

, with three storeys with a spiral staircase and holes for floor beams remaining on the first floor level. The later Tudor

is also three storeys high, with four sets of widely spaced

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed windows. It had large corridors and its ground floor kitchen provided heat for the first floor where the Lord and his family lived. The doorway is cut

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and there is an

in the eastern wall. There are projecting corner turrets. The castle has a

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

above the ground floor. The original entrance was protected by a

murder-hole A murder hole or meurtrière is a hole in the ceiling of a gateway or passageway in a fortification through which the defenders could shoot, throw or pour harmful substances or objects such as rocks, arrows, scalding water, hot sand, quicklime ...

leading from a small room below the first floor level. This reflects a new age, when the Lord moved away from his retainers and lived in a residence with his own family. They lived on the first floor, heated by the kitchen below, with

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

open windows and wooden floors. On the first floor there is a secret mural chamber, reached only by a set of stairs from above, assumed to be a priest hole.

References

Buildings and structures in Navan Castles in County Meath Fortified houses National monuments in County Meath {{Ireland-castle-stub