Doe Castle, or Caisleán na dTuath, near

Creeslough Creeslough ( , locally ; ) is a village in County Donegal, Ireland, south of Dunfanaghy on the N56 road (Ireland), N56 road. It overlooks an arm of Sheephaven Bay, with the population of the surrounding area engaged mainly in agriculture, mo ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

, was the historical stronghold of Clan tSuibhne (Clan McSweeney), with architectural parallels to the Scottish

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 ...

. Built in the early 15th century, it is one of the better fortalices in the north-west of

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 castle sits on a small peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, with a moat cut into the rock of the landward side. The structure consists mainly of high outer walls around an interior

bawn A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word ''bábhún'' (sometimes spelt ''badhún''), possibly meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure".See alternative traditional s ...

with a four-storey tower-house or keep.

History

Doe Castle was most likely built c.1420 by the Quinn family, but by the 1440s, it had come into the hands of the

gallowglass The Gallowglass (also spelled galloglass, gallowglas or galloglas; from meaning "foreign warriors") were a class of elite mercenary warriors who were principally members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland and Scotland between the mid 13th ...

MacSweeney family. The castle remained in the hands of a branch of the

Clan Sweeney Clan Sweeney is an Irish clan of Scottish origin. The Mac Suibhne family did not permanently settle in Ireland before the beginning of the 14th century, when they became Gallowglass soldiers for the Ua Domnaill dynasty of Tír Chonaill. The c ...

known as ''Mac Suibhne na d'Tuath'' (Mac Sweeney Doe) for almost two hundred years until it was seized by King

James VI and I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 M ...

because the MacSweeneys had rebelled against him. On 7 March 1613 during the

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster (; Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster Scots: ) was the organised Settler colonialism, colonisation (''Plantation (settlement or colony), plantation'') of Ulstera Provinces of Ireland, province of Irelandby people from Great ...

, the king granted the castle, along with other lands, to the

Attorney-General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then, from 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800, United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on ...

, Sir

John Davies (poet, born 1569) Sir John Davies (16 April 1569 (baptised)8 December 1626) was an English poet, lawyer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1597 and 1621. He became Attorney General for Ireland and formulated many of the legal ...

. On 31 December 1614, Sir John sold the castle to an English settler, Captain John Sandford from

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England. It was there that

Owen Roe O'Neill Owen Roe O'Neill ( Irish: ''Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill;'' – 6 November 1649) was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster. O'Neill left Ireland at a young age and spent most of his life as a mercenary ...

returned in 1642 to lead the

Ulster Army The Laggan Army, sometimes referred to as the Lagan Army, was a militia formed by Protestant settlers in the fertile Laggan district in the east of County Donegal in Ulster, during the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Background Follo ...

of the

Irish Confederate The Irish Confederation was an Irish nationalist independence movement, established on 13 January 1847 by members of the Young Ireland movement who had seceded from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association. Historian T. W. Moody described it as "t ...

forces during the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union un ...

. The castle changed hands repeatedly during the 17th-century struggle for control of Ireland between the English and the Irish. It is known that in 1650, Sir Charles Coote, the Governor of Londonderry, took possession of the castle. Eventually, the castle was bought by Sir George Vaughan Hart and inhabited by his family until 1843.

Today

In 1932, the castle came into the hands of the Land Commission, and in 1934 was declared a national monument and was acquired by the Office of Public Works. The tower house element of the castle underwent a major restoration in the 1990s. Irish singer

Brian McFadden Brian Nicholas McFadden (born 12 April 1980) is an Irish pop singer and television presenter. He rose to fame in 1998 as a member of the Irish boy band Westlife. Following his departure from the group in 2004, McFadden released his debut solo ...

proposed to his (now ex-) wife,

Kerry Katona Kerry Katona (born 6 September 1980) is an English television personality and former singer. She was an original member of the pop girl group Atomic Kitten between 1998 and 2001, leaving before the group's success. Katona has appeared on va ...

, at the castle in 2001, it being the spot where his grandfather also had proposed to his grandmother.Bryan Mcfadden And Kerry Katona Wed In Breathtaking Ceremony
The castle grounds are open daily and guided tours of the tower house are available during the summer months.

References

Doe Castle National monuments in County Donegal {{Donegal-geo-stub