What is recorded here

Loghan Castle vanished before human memory, leaving only a map mark near Mount Dalton Lough and a hall built much later. Oliver Dalton held its lands in 1641, yet even the Down Survey gave no warning about the chamber where that household may have loved, feared or raged. The castle denied itself to every later search, preserving the excitement of a room that exists only through absence.

The precise location of Loughan Castle has not been identified. Loghan Castle is depicted as a tower house type structure standing to the NNE of Mount Dalton Lough on the 1655-9 Down Survey map of Rathconrath parish (NLI, MS 723-4). The Dow Survey map indicates that the castle was located in the vicinity of Mount Dalton House (now Loughazon Hall). The castle is not depicted on any edition of the OS 6-inch maps. The area around Loughazon Hall (formerly Mount Dalton House) was visited in 1983 and no trace of a castle was identified at this location or in the outbuildings associated with this house. The terrier of the Down Survey map of Rathconrath parish recorded that 'The Improvements are upon Loghan a Castle' (ibid.) In 1641 the castle stood on lands belonging to Oliver Dalton who is listed as an 'Irish papist' (ibid.). Loughazon Hall described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as a 'Detached six-bay two-storey over basement country house with two-bay single-storey wing to the east, built c.1784 and altered c.1830' (www.buildingsofireland.ie; Reg. No. 15401816). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 06 October 2016

Loughan Castle was likely a tower house built in the 17th century, as indicated by its depiction on the 1655-9 Down Survey map. Its exact location remains unidentified, but it is remembered as part of the historical landscape of Rathconrath parish.

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