Donore 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 ...

(''caiseal'') and

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 ...

County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...

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 ...

Location

Donore Castle is located on the north bank of the Boyne, south of the R161, just upriver of the point where it meets the

Enfield Blackwater The River Blackwater, also called the Enfield Blackwater, or Kildare Blackwater is a river that flows through the counties of Kildare and Meath in Ireland. It is a tributary of the River Boyne which flows into the Irish Sea at Drogheda. Course ...

History

In 1429 Henry VI, King of England and

Lord of Ireland The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of Kingdom of England, England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Normans in Ireland, Anglo ...

in an effort to defend

The Pale The Pale ( Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast s ...

, granted ten pounds to any of his subjects who built a small defensive tower (20 × 16 × 40 feet) on the edge of the Pale before 1439. The tower house at Donore is assumed to be one of these castles, built by the local power, the Mac Eochagáin (McGeoghegans). In 1650, during the

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641 to 1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three ...

, the castle was taken by forces under Sir John Reynolds and over 40 members of the McGeoghegan family were massacred. According to the

Civil Survey The Civil Survey was a cadastral survey of landholdings in Ireland carried out in 1654–1656. It was separate from the Down Survey, which began while the Civil Survey was in progress, and made use of Civil Survey data to guide its progress. Wher ...

(1654–56) Garrat Lench of "Donowre" owned in 1640, and on the property was ‘a Castle and

Orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

, a weare and some cottages.’ An illustration from 1785 shows the castle occupied with a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...

(where all sides slope downwards to the walls).

Building

The castle has three storeys, and measures 7.3 × 6.3 m at the base, and is tall with rounded corners a projecting round tower at the corner housing a

spiral staircase Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical direction, vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps wh ...

. It has a

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosur ...

ed roof on the lower floor and mural

garderobe Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy". The word der ...

and a fireplace on the upper floors. The ceilings were supported on

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a bearing weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applie ...

. One of the Castle's defenses is 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, ...

situated at roof level above the entrance door. There are also carved heads of a king and

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

above the doorway.

References

National monuments in County Meath Castles in County Meath {{Ireland-castle-stub