Doe Castle

Doe Castle is a National Monument (No. 319) in State care. It is first mentioned in 1544 in connection with an internecine struggle between the sons of MacSweeny Doe. Some survivors of the Spanish Armada were granted refuge here in 1588. Between 1600 and 1614 the castle figured prominently in the local wars between the English and Irish. In 1614 it came into the possession of Capt. John Sandford and in 1623 it was described as 'an ancient strong castle, three storeys high, and a bawn of lime and stone . . . . with good flankers . . . . The castle and bawn (DG026-023003-) are well repaired by Captain Samford who hath made in it some additions of buildings, and hath covered the house and slated it, and is now building a stone house within the bawn' (Treadwell 1953-5, 43). Shortly after the outbreak of rebellion in 1641, Doe Castle fell into Irish hands and it was here, in 1642, that Owen Roe O'Neill landed with a hundred Irish veterans. It was captured by English forces under Sir Charles Coote in 1650 and continued as a military garrison during the second half of the 17th century. In the Williamite Wars it was taken by Donogh Og MacSweeny after the occupants had withdrawn for safety to Derry. It was subsequently abandoned and fell into ruins. Towards the end of the 18th century the lands came into the possession of George Vaughan Harte and c. 1800 he began to restore Doe Castle. 'All except the keep or tower was a complete ruin nearly level to this ground, even the court walls. The tower too was open from bottom to top . . . His son and successor, . . . Captain John Hart, finally completed the castle out-buildings and other improvements at great expense' (Fagan Bk. 2, 26). William Harte, who visited Doe during one of these alterations, records that on the E side 'there has lately been constructed outside of the exterior stone wall, a lunette of earthwork, on which are mounted five long nine-pounders cannon' (Floredice 1881, 3). The Harte family moved to Kilderry near Muff in 1864 and the estate was soon after purchased by Stewart of Ards. Though subsequently let to various tenants, the castle was abandoned by c. 1890 and allowed to fall into ruins. It was bought by the Irish Land Commission in 1932 and is now a national monument (McDonagh 1952, 381-402). Situated on a small promontory in Sheephaven Bay, Doe Castle is protected on three sides by the sea and on the landward W side by a deep rock-cut fosse. The remains comprise a tower-house with adjoining outbuildings enclosed by a bawn wall. Due largely to its chequered history and, in particular, to the alterations carried out there during the earlier 19th century by the Harte family, it is difficult, and in places, impossible to distinguish the original features from the later additions and reparations. The tower-house or keep is built of rubble laid in mortar and has ashlar quoins; the walls have battered lower courses. The four-storey building is rectangular in plan, 4.28m by 5.8m internally and 16.75m in height to the top of the parapet. It had timber floors carried on scarcements at third-floor level. The interior has been modified and an extra wall added against the E face, which rises the full height of the building. It was inserted to accommodate corner fireplaces and has a central arched embrasure on each floor. The entrance to the keep is in the S wall and a mural stair beside it on the E gives access to the upper floors. The ground-floor chamber has two wall-presses in the angles of the NE and NW corners. There is a large opening in the N wall, probably the position of a window embrasure. The embrasure in the W wall is fitted with three conjoined gun-loops centrally set in the outer wall. Access to the first-floor is by a doorway in the centre of the E wall. The chamber is lighted by windows (now large rectangles) set in rectangular embrasures centrally placed in the other three walls. There are wall-presses in the NW corner and at the W end of the S wall. The mural garderobe at the E end of the N wall is entered by a corner doorway fitted with a small internal bolt-hole. Access to the second floor was only from the chamber on the floor above. This third-floor chamber has diagonally opposing entrances in the N end of the W wall and S end of the E wall which communicated by a quarter-turn spiral stairs with doorways in the N and S walls of the floor below. The second-floor chamber is lighted by a small rectangular window with chamfered dressings and slightly splayed ingoings in the S wall; there is evidence in the exterior masonry of the N wall for two blocked-up windows. The mural stairs rises steeply through the E wall and changes to a spiral stairs in the NE angle which leads onto a mural passage in the E wall at third-floor level. A small doorway gives access to a mural garderobe at the E end of the N wall; the shute drops to behind that at first-floor level. There is a doorway across the mural passage in the E wall; the masonry has been altered and is, in part, modern but incorporates earlier jamb fragments, one of which has a bolt-hole. A door in this position would have effectively prohibited access to both the third and second floors. S of this doorway is the entrance to the third-floor chamber. It is lighted on three sides by windows set in rectangular embrasures; that in the W wall is a modern rectangular opening, that in the N wall is narrow with a trefoil head, and in the S wall is of a two-light, ogee-headed window with transom. There is a wall-press in SW corner and the room has two doorways which provide access to the floor below. An embrasure at the E end of the S wall has a stop-chamfered doorway with pointed head in the exterior face. There are two opposing sinkings in the embrasure ingoings near the inner wall face which were undoubtedly fitted with a timber cross-beam. This may have formed part of a winch-mechanism and the outer door used for hauling merchandise or stores into the upper apartments of the keep. The floor of the embrasure is open and directly above the entrance of the spiral stairs on the floor below; it probably had a trap-door and the second-floor may have been used for storage purposes. Within the E and W gable is an attic floor which is entered by a pointed doorway from the mural stairs in the E wall. The stairs lead to the SE corner of the wall-walk, which has an over-sailing parapet with rain-water outlets; the parapet is undoubtedly a restoration and is pierced with five rectangular openings. On the E and S of the keep is an L-shaped building with a battered two-storey circular flanker at the NE corner. The flanker has a conical corbelled roof and is fitted with three gun-loops on the ground floor and two loops and a small pointed window with chamfered dressings on the first floor. The N wall of this addition is probably a modern rebuilding and in the exterior face above the entrance incorporates the initials G.V.H. (George Vaughan Harte) and the Harte Coat of Arms. This L-shaped building may possibly be contemporary with the large hall built on the S of the keep. The lower courses of the W wall of this building are battered. The gun-loops and window with chamfered dressings in the ground floor of the E wall may be original features. The N wall of this building is undoubtedly modern and the E and W walls at first floor level are probably replacements of earlier walls. The upper section of the S wall is offset on the exterior and carried on a chamfered over-sailing course, on the interior, at first-floor level; the chamfer is punch dressed in 16th century fashion. The off-set, converted to a wall-walk, oversails the exterior wall face, is provided with rain-water outlets and defended by a machicolation. The bawn wall is not bonded into the SE corner of this building and is probably a later addition; the wall is bonded into the SW corner but only to first-floor level. The three-storey circular tower which abuts the NW corner and the SW corner of the k