Dún Dealgan Motte is a

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 ...

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 ...

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

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

Dún Dealgan Motte is located immediately northwest of

and west of Mount Avenue, on a ridge overlooking the

Castletown River The Castletown River () is a river which flows through the town of Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland. It rises near Newtownhamilton, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and is known as the Creggan River in its upper reaches. Its two main tributaries ...

History and archaeology

Motte

An ancient

Gaelic Irish The Gaels ( ; ; ; ) are an Insular Celtic ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic languages comprising Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaeli ...

dún A dun is an ancient or medieval fort. In Great Britain and Ireland it is mainly a kind of hillfort and also a kind of Atlantic roundhouse. Etymology The term comes from Irish ''dún'' or Scottish Gaelic ''dùn'' (meaning "fort"), and is c ...

once stood here. Some legends claim the site as the birthplace of

Cú Chulainn Cú Chulainn ( ), is an Irish warrior hero and demigod in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore. He is believed to be an incarnation of the Irish god Lugh, who is also his father. His mother is the ...

, and it is here that he bases himself in the Táin Bó Cúailgne. The

Annals of the Four Masters The ''Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland'' () or the ''Annals of the Four Masters'' () are chronicles of Middle Ages, medieval Irish history. The entries span from the Genesis flood narrative, Deluge, dated as 2,242 Anno Mundi, years after crea ...

places a battle here in 500 AD. Early accounts merely call it ''Dealga'', with ''dún'' only added after 1002, so it's possible that a fort was only built on the hill around that time. A Z-shaped

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 ...

, in length, was also dug into the hill in the Gaelic period. Motte-and-bailey castles were a primitive type of castle built after the Norman invasion, a mound of earth topped by a wooden

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

and tower. The motte and bailey castle was built on a mound of earth c. 68m in diameter at the base and 10m in height, allowing the tower on top to have a commanding view for miles, including a clear line of sight to the Castletown River and towards the northern route from Ulster. Dún Dealgan motte is believed to have been constructed by Bertram III de Verdun (c.1135–1192), with a bailey to the southeast. It was a stronghold of Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster in 1210, but he left it when pursued northwards by King John.

Folly

A local landowner named Patrick Byrne (often called a

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

, due to much of his wealth originating from

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

) began to build a Gothic house atop the mount in 1780. It was damaged in the 1798 Rebellion, and only a castellated tower ("Byrne's

Folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

") remained. The house was rebuilt in 1850 by Thomas Vesey Dawson as a country retreat, but fell into disrepair and was bought by the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society to be used for a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

. It was further damaged in the revolutionary period (1919–23) when it was deliberately set on fire by armed men.

References

{{reflist Archaeological sites in County Louth National monuments in County Louth Motte-and-bailey castles