Doe Castle, or Caisleán na dTuath, near

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

, County Donegal, 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, in order to command and defend strateg ...

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

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

. 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 sp ...

with a four-storey tower-house/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 ga, gallóglaigh meaning foreign warriors) were a class of elite mercenary warriors who were principally members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland between the mid 13 ...

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. Th ...

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 Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until h ...

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

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation (''plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the sett ...

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

Attorney-General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. With the e ...

, 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 (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, England. It was there that

Owen Roe O'Neill Owen Roe O'Neill ( Irish: ''Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill;'' – 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 in the Spanish ...

returned in 1642 to lead the

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

of the Irish Confederate forces during the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities united in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bi ...

. 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 Towerhouse 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 who 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 Jayne Elizabeth Katona (born 6 September 1980) is a British media personality and singer. She was a member of girl group Atomic Kitten from 1998 until her first departure in 2001 and again from 2012 until her second departure in 2017. ...

, 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 towerhouse are available during the Summer months.

References

Doe Castle Doe Castle, or Caisleán na dTuath, near Creeslough, County Donegal, was the historical stronghold of Clan tSuibhne (Clan McSweeney), with architectural parallels to the Scottish tower house. Built in the early 15th century, it is one of the b ...

National Monuments in County Donegal {{Donegal-geo-stub