 |
Ballinafad
Castle would have been one of many "slam on the
brakes" castles we encountered during our trip to
Ireland in June 2003 were it not for the fact that we saw
the castle in a meadow above the N4 between Collooney and
Boyle quite a ways off. The castle is not mentioned in
any of my four books of Irish castles, though the
fortress rates a nice paragraph in Plantagenet Somerset
Fry's Castles of Britain and Ireland.
Also known as "The Castle of the Curlews" due
to its strategic location on a pass through the Curlew
Mountains near the southern border of County Sligo, the
castle is a rectangular keep with a massive round tower
at each corner, the turrets one story higher than the
central keep. Beal-an-atha-afad (the
mouth of the long ford) was built by Captain John St.
Barbe on lands granted to him by King James I. Following
the battle at the site between the forces of Red Hugh O'Donnell
and the English in 1599, life for Captain St. Barbe went
well until his death in 1628. The new owner, Henry
Fletcher, and his ten wardens were forced to surrender
the castle during the Irish insurrection of 1641, when
their water ran out (despite a stream less than 50 meters
to the east). Cromwellian forces retook the castle in
1652, and after occupation by the Healys and McDermotts,
the castle gradually decayed. She is a pretty and
poignant ruin.
|
 |
