House — 17th century in Drumboe Lower

It is represented as a substantial dwelling with garden and outbuildings to the west on the OS 1st ed. map (surveyed 1836). It is there named 'Drumboe Castle' but not in the standard OS typeface indicating an antiquity. This residence was described in Lewis, Topographical Dictionary (1837), under Stranalor as 'Drumboe Castle, the residence of Sir E. Hayes, Bart., M.P., situated on a pretty lawn in the centre of an improved demesne . . .' It would appear not to have been included in Donegal Survey (1983) because there was no substantive evidence, other than the name, that the building pre-dated 1700 AD (the cut-off point for the Survey). By way of post-script this would appear to be the Drumboe Castle where, on 14 March 1923, four anti-Treaty members of the IRA who had been captured on 2 November 1922, were summarily shot and their bodies buried there. Their remains were secretly exhumed and transferred to the Athlone Military Barracks in August or September 1924. This is the subject of a song 'The Drumboe Martyrs'. Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of revised upload: 19 July 2010