Dunguaire Castle (Irish: Dún Guaire) is a 16th-century tower house on the southeastern shore of Galway Bay in County Galway, Ireland, near Kinvara (also spelled Kinvarra). The name derives from the Dun of King Guaire, the legendary king of Connacht. The castle's 75-foot (23 m) tower and its defensive wall have been restored, and the grounds are open to tourists during the summer.


History
The 19th century Gaelic scholar John O'Donovan states in his Ordnance Survey letters for County Galway, and his book, The Genealogies, Tribes and Customs of the Hy-Fiachrach, that Dunguaire was built by the Ó hEidhin clan, chiefs of Coill Ua bhFiachrach, the district around Kinvara, and also of Uí Fiachrach Aidhne an area coextensive with the diocese of Kilmacduagh covering the part of county County Galway between the Burren and Galway Bay to the west and Slieve Aughty to the east.

Dunguaire Castle was used in the 1969 Walt Disney movie Guns in the Heather, featuring Kurt Russell, in which the castle was featured as Boyne Castle. It was also the Scottish castle home of the main character in the 1979 film North Sea Hijack.

Legends
Another regionally well known legend is the ""Road of the Dishes"" (Bothar na Mias), involving King Guaire and St. Colman of Kilmacduagh.

Dunguaire Castle

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Thoor Ballylee Castle (Irish Túr Bhaile Uí Laí) is a fortified, 15th (or 16th) century Hiberno-Norman tower house built by the septs de Burgo, or Burke, near the town of Gort in County Galway, Ireland. It is also known as Yeats' Tower because it was once owned and inhabited by the poet William Butler Yeats.

History
The castle was built in the 15th (or possibly 16th) century and originally formed part of the huge estates of the Earls of Clanrickarde, from the de Burgo or Burke family.

The nearby four-arched bridge dates to around 1825.[1] In 1837, the Carrig family was recorded as living in the castle. At the time of Griffith's Valuation (1857), Patrick Carrick was leasing a herd's house, castle and land at Ballylee, barony of Kiltartan, from William Henry Gregory. At the time, the property was valued at £5.[2]

In the early 1900s, the castle/tower was still owned by the Gregory family and became part of nearby Coole Estate, home of Lady Augusta Gregory, Yeats’ lifelong friend.[3] On the estate, Coole House, where Lady Gregory lived, was the centre for meetings for the Irish literary group, a group composed of a great number of preeminent figures of the day. Near this tower, in Coole Park, began the Irish Literary Revival.[4]

Thoor Ballylee is also known today as Yeats’ Tower, because in 1916 (or 1917) Yeats purchased the property for the nominal sum of £35 because he was so enchanted with it and especially as it was located in a rural area.[5] From 1921 to 1929,[6][7] Yeats and his family lived there as it was his monument and symbol: In both aspects, it satisfied his desire for a rooted place in the countryside.[8] The tower retained its original windows in the upper part. Yeats and his architect, Professor William A. Scott, restored the tower for the next two years and installed larger windows in the lower floors.[9][10]

As he had an affinity for the Irish language, Yeats dropped the term ""castle"" in naming the property and replaced it with ""Thoor"" (Túr), the Irish word for ""tower""; thus, the place has been known as Thoor Ballylee. For twelve years, Thoor Ballylee was Yeats’ summer home as it was his country retreat. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, ""Everything is so beautiful that to go elsewhere is to leave beauty behind."" Consequently, it is no wonder that Yeats was inspired and compelled to create literary works at Ballylee such as poems like The Tower and Coole Park and Ballylee.[11]

In 1929, Ballylee was abandoned as the Yeats family moved out and it fell to disuse and ruin.[12]

In 1951, a scene of John Ford's The Quiet Man in which John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara cross a river was shot next to Thoor Ballylee.

Mary Hanley (1914-1979) was the founder of the Kiltartan Society. A native of Carron, County Clare, Hanley founded the society in 1961 to foster interest in the literary history of the district, especially that of Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and W.B. Yeats. She was responsible for the restoration of Thoor Ballylee (with the aid of Bord Fáilte and the Yeats family). At the time, the Office of Public Works was owner of the property. Hanley persuaded the poet Padraic Colum to open the castle on Sunday 20 June 1965, the centenary of Yeats’s birth, as Yeats Tower to appear as it was when he lived there and refitted as a Yeats museum containing a collection of first editions and items of furniture.[13] The adjoining miller's cottage became a tea room and shop. This was later expanded by a newly constructed building in the back.

Today
Due to its proximity to the Streamstown River, Thoor Ballylee is subject to sporadic flooding. This occurred notably in 1995 and in 2009/2010. In 2009, Thoor Ballylee was extensively damaged by flooding.[14][15] For a while it appeared that due to the financial problems of the Irish government, no money would be available to repair it.[16]

Thus only in February 2012 did work by Fáilte Ireland on restoring the tower begin, although no opening date was envisaged at the time.[17] One of the forces behind the decision to repair the tower had been East Galway senator Lorraine Higgins, who argued that a reopened Yeats' Tower would be a boon to local tourism.[18]

By February 2013 the tower had still not reopened. However, a private group — in cooperation with Fáilte Ireland — had engaged the services of Galway Rural Development, a make-work-scheme, for the maintenance work.[19]

In 2014, a local community group the ""Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society"" leased Thoor Ballylee from Fáilte Ireland to develop it into a culture and education centre, in time for the Yeats 150th Anniversary in June 2015. The Society is cooperating with the National Yeats Steering Committee and the Yeats Society to ensure that Thoor Ballylee is an integrated part of the Yeats 2015 celebrations.[20]

In early December 2015, Storm 'Desmond' devastated parts of Ireland with flooding rain and damaging winds. Thoor Ballylee, and the adjacent cottage, were both damaged by several feet of flood water.

Architecture
With four floors, the tower consists of one room on each floor that is connected by a spiral stone stairway built into the seven-foot thickness of the massive outer wall. Each floor has a window that overlooks the Streamstown River that flows alongside the tower. There is a small thatch cottage attached.

Yeats described the ground-floor chamber as ""the pleasantest room I have yet seen, a great wide window opening over the river and a round arched door leading to the thatched hall"". He also admired the mural stair, symbolically declaring ""This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair; That Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke have traveled there

Thoor Ballylee

Ruinous remains of detached multi-period country house, comprising tower house of c.1550 to eastern half having three-bay ground floor and single-bay first and second floors, and later two-bay four-storey block of c.1720 to west having square-plan turret to its east end. Now roofless, ruinous and covered in vegetation. Crenellations to front of later block, machicolations to three corners of tower house. Triple-gabled elevation to north, having rendered chimneystacks with moulded parapets. Rubble stone walls having remnants of early render and with weather-slating to north elevation gables, and with battered east elevation. Square-headed window openings, some with cut-stone sills. Round-headed door opening set in square-headed recess to south elevation, having cut limestone door surround. Round-headed window opening above door.

This structure forms the remains of an interesting multi-phase building, formerly the seat of the Blake family, consisting of a sixteenth-century tower house which has been altered and enlarged at various periods. Menlough Castle was the scene of much high living in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries until a disastrous fire in 1910. The entire building was gutted and has remained a ruin ever since. Nonetheless, the remains of crenellated parapets and the scale and mass of the building make an interesting eye-catcher in the landscape.

Menlo Castle

Athenry Castle is a tower house and National Monument located in Athenry, Ireland.


Location
Athenry Castle is located off Court Lane in the east part of Athenry, on the west bank of the River Clarin. It is sited on a natural rise and defended the ford.

History
Despite being locally known as King John's Castle or King John's Court (after the Lord of Ireland 1177–1216), it wasn't built until twenty years after his reign.[5]

The original keep (constructed 1235/40) was low and squat, the roof being at the level of the present second floor. Meyler de Bermingham extended it c. 1250. In 1316 the castle was attacked, leading to the construction of city walls. In the 15th century the Berminghams moved from it to their town house near the market cross in the square. In 1596 the castle fell into the hands of the O'Donnells.[6]

The battlements are 13th century and in the 15th century, these parapets were incorporated into gables for a new roof.[7]

The castle was restored in 2005.[8]

Building

Another view
Athenry Castle is a large rectangular building with base-batter, originally containing only a hall on the upper level and storerooms at ground level. The battlements are 13th century with tall arrowslits in the merlons. In the 15th century, these parapets were incorporated into gables at the north and south ends for a new roof. Parts of the original enclosure wall of the castle survive.[9]

The original entrance was at first-floor level and was reached by an external wooden stairs. Heat was probably provided by a brazier in the centre of the hall, with the smoke exiting through a louver or opening in the roof directly above. The garderobe is diagonally across from the main entrance.

There is fine carving on the exterior of the doorway and on the inner side of two of the window openings.

The capitals are carved with floral motifs in a local style, known as the ""School of the West"", transitional between Romanesque and Late Gothic.[10]

A mural staircase led to the top floor. Wall-towers were built at the northeast and southeast corners, while the southwest corner was fortified by the gate.

Athenry Castle

Leamaneh Castle is a ruined castle located in the townland of Leamaneh North, parish of Kilnaboy, between the villages of Corofin and Kilfenora at the border of the region known as the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. It consists of a 15th-century tower house and a 17th-century mansion.

Name
The castle's name ""Leamaneh"" is believed to be derived from the Irish léim an éich which, when translated into English means ""the horse's leap"" or léim an fheidh (""the deer's leap"").[2]:38 It is also sometimes spelled ""Lemeneagh Castle"".

Location
The castle is located at an important local crossroads and the place where the Baronies of Burren, Corcomroe and Inchiquin met. Today the road R476 from Kilfenora to Kilnaboy village and the R480 north to Ballyvaughan intersect there.[3]:119

History
Early structure
The castle was originally a basic, 5-storied Irish tower house which was built circa 1480-90, probably by Toirdelbhach Donn MacTadhg Ó Briain, King of Thomond of the O'Brien family, one of the last of the High Kings of Ireland and a direct descendant of Brian Boru.[4]

In 1543, Turlogh Donn's son, Murrough surrendered his title of King to Henry VIII and was created in 1st Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin. In 1550, Murrough gave Leamaneh to his third son, Donough. Donough was hanged in Limerick in 1582 as a rebel.[4]

Manor house
In 1639, Donough's grandson, Conor O'Brien married Máire ní Mahon (MacMahon).[4] She became one of the most famous women in Irish folklore who, due to her flaming red hair, was commonly known asMáire Rúa (""Red Mary""). She was born in 1615 or 1616. Her father was Sir Torlach Rúa MacMahon, Lord of Clonderlaw and her mother was Lady Mary O'Brien, daughter of the third Earl of Thomond. Her first husband, Daniel O'Neylan (also sometimes written O'Neillan or Neylan) of Dysert O'Dea Castle in north Clare died young and upon his death, she gained control of his substantial estate and a £1,000 fortune. This wealth enabled her and Conor to build a more comfortable mansion on to the tower house.

Part of the tower house was demolished and replaced by a 4-storied mansion around 1648. Máire accompanied her husband on raids against English settlers. In 1651, he was mortally wounded fighting on the Royalists' side at Inchicronan (Crusheen). Reportedly, immediately after her husband's death, the widow, realizing that the punishment for his rebellion against the English would be the forfeiture of their property, drove to Limerick and offered to marry any Cromwellian officer who would take her hand.[2]:40[4] (This is refuted in other versions of the story which state that Máire Rúa didn't marry until 1653, two years after Conor's death.)

General Ludlow, who commanded the English Parliament forces at Inchicronan subsequently conducted counter-insurgency operations in the Burren, making his well-known statement about the area's barrenness. He went on to say about Leamaneh ""and finding it indifferent strong, being built with stone and having a good wall about it, we put a garrison into it and furnished it with all things necessary"".[2]:40

Rúa's third husband, Cornet John Cooper was a Cromwellian soldier and through this marriage she successfully retained her estates.[4] Cooper left the army and amassed some wealth through land and property speculation. However, he later ran into financial difficulty and, as a result, the estate which he had married into at Leamaneh, which he under law now owned through his wife, was mortgaged to repay his debts.

In the 1660s, Cromwellian troops were stationed on and off at Leamaneh. Máire Rúa's son, Donagh or Donough (after 1686 Sir Donat) found the tower and manor damaged but stayed there until 1684/1685, when he moved the family seat from Leamaneh to the much larger Dromoland Castle in Newmarket-On-Fergus, south of Ennis.[4]

Although Máire Rúa's children from her first marriage to Daniel O'Neylan (or O'Neillan) were raised Catholic, Sir Donagh/Donat was brought up as a Protestant and eventually became the ""richest commoner in Ireland."" He built ""Sir Donat's Road"", connecting Killnaboy and Leamaneh, a toll road, the flanking stone walls of which are still visible in places. The gate houses at which tolls were collected have since been demolished.[3]:122

He served as Sheriff of Clare in 1690 and as MP for Clare from 1695 to 1713. He died in 1717.[3]:122[4] By 1678, the estate had been increased to over 10,000 acres of land.[3]:122

Recent past

Leamaneh had various occupants in subsequent years. However, the house finally fell into ruin at the end of the 18th century. The barbican-like gates which adorned the entrance to the property were moved to Dromoland Castle in 1906 or 1908 by Lord Inchiquin. They are still there.[3]:121[4]

The most elegant of the fireplaces was relocated to the ""Old Ground Hotel"" in Ennis.[3]:122

Today
Today, the ruins include both the tower house with its arrow slits (or ""loops"") and the four walls of the adjoining manor house with their mullioned and transomed windows. The latter features a Trompe-l'œil effect, as the windows of the upper floors are smaller, creating an illusion of greater height. Some of the remains of the outbuildings and the walled gardens/deer park can still be seen. Unlike many of the castles in Ireland, Leamaneh is unmaintained and due to its poor state of repair not accessible. It is located on privately owned land and the area is used for farming.