THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 24. | SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1840. | Volume I. |
THE CASTLE OF DONEGAL.
The ruins of the old castellated Mansion of Donegal are notonly interesting as affording, to use the words of Sir R. ColtHoare, “a good subject for the pencil,” but still more as atouching memorial of the fallen fortunes of a long-time powerfuland illustrious family, the ancient lords of Tirconnell.These ruins are situated on the north bank of the littleriver Easky, or the fishy river, at the extremity of the townto which, as well as to the county, it has given its name.This name, however, which signifies literally the Dun, or Fortof the Foreigners, is of much higher antiquity than the castleerected here by the O’Donnells, and was, there can be nodoubt, originally applied to a fortress, most probably of earth,raised here by the Danes or Northmen anterior to the twelfthcentury; for it appears unquestionable that the Irish appliedthe appellations Gaill exclusively to the northern rovers, anteriorto the arrival of the English. Of the early history ofthis dun or fortress there is nothing preserved beyond the barefact recorded in the Annals of Ulster, that it was burnt byMurtogh M’Loughlin, the head of the northern Hy-Niall race,in the year 1159. We have, however, an evidence of the connectionof the Danes with this locality more than two centuriesearlier, in a very valuable poem which we shall at no remotetime present to our readers, addressed by the Tirconnellianbard, Flan Mac Lonan, to Aighleann and Cathbar,the brothers of Domhnall, from whom the name of O’Donnellis derived. In this poem, which was composed at the commencementof the tenth century, the poet relates that Egneachan,the father of Donnell, gave his three beautiful daughters,Duibhlin, Bebua, and Bebinn, in marriage to three Danishprinces, Caithis, Torges, and Tor, for the purpose of obtainingtheir friendship, and to secure his territory from their depredations;and these marriages were solemnised at Donegal,where Egneachan then resided.
But though we have therefore evidence that a fort or dunexisted here from a very remote time, it would appear certain,from a passage in the Annals of the Four Masters, thata castle, properly so called, was not erected at Donegal bythe O’Donnells till the year 1474. In this passage, whichrecords the death of Hugh Roe, the son of Niall GarveO’Donnell, at the year 1505, it is distinctly stated that hewas the first that erected a castle at Donegal, that it mightserve as a fortress for his descendants; and that he also erectedas it would appear, at the same time, a monastery for ObservantineFranciscans near the same place, and in which he wasinterred in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and forty-fourthof his reign. From this period forward the Castle ofDonegal became the chief residence of the chiefs of Tirconnell,till their final extinction in the reign of James I., and wasthe scene of many a petty domestic feud and conflict. Froma notice of one of these intestine broils, as recorded in the[Pg 186]Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1564, it would appearthat shortly previous to that period a tower, called “theNew Tower,” had been added to the older structure. Thistower being at that time in the possession of Hugh, the grandsonof the builder of the original castle, while the latter wasinhabited by h