ROSCOMMON CASTLE
Medieval Ruins of Connacht
I came upon Roscommon Castle on the way from Derry in the north to Galway on the west coast. Located just on the edge of the town of the same name, it’s a magnificent ruin, and unlike some of the other castles, relatively undeveloped for tourists. There are no movie shows, history centers, or tea shops, in fact no entry fees or turnstiles either, just a wooden bridge to cross where a moat drawbridge once guarded the entrance. The name Roscommon essentially means “the woods of St Common”. Comain Mac Faelchon, educated in the monastic school at the Abbey of Clonard in Meath, a protégé of Saint Finnian of Clonard, founded a monastery in the wooded flat plains east of Galway in about 550, getting the name of Ros Comáin (Comain’s Wood), later anglicized to Roscommon. The castle at Roscommon is today a dramatic relic, but in the 13th to 14th Centuries was one of the most important castles in Ireland, controlling much of the west and central lands.
Roscommon Castle is a square shape form with four corner towers, standing three stories tall. The entrance gate is guarded by twin towers once holding a portcullis and features an impressive still standing roof vault. The castle was once completely surrounded by a curtain wall, now mostly open to green grass and the occasional wandering sheep. The castle is flanked by a city park called Loughlaneane, where in the Middle-Ages a lake formed the natural protecting moat. The castle in its current form dates from 1269, built by the Anglo-Norman, Robert de Ufford, chief governor of Ireland for Henry III, on lands he took from the Augustinian Priory, whose ruined abbey can still be seen on the other side of town. The castle was sieged in 1272 by the King of Connacht Aodh O’Connor, who held out for eight years before being retaken and repaired by the English. The O’Connors took possession again in 1340 and held onto the castle off and on for two centuries.
Under the Tudors, the castle was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Nicholas Malby (Malbie), appointed military Governor of Connacht in 1578. Malby undertook a remolding and building campaign, adding the interior apartments and the large mullioned windows now seen in the towers and walls. Malby, who rose from a mere Sergeant-at-Arms, at one point condemned to death for the crime of “coinage”, to the Royal command of a large swath of Ireland, and curiously accounted in the Irish annals of the time as “a better gentleman of the foreigners” who “placed all Connacht under bondage” enjoyed the castle until he died in 1584 and was replaced by Richard Bingham as Governor in 1585. The Parliamentarians took the castle in 1641 and held it for four years until it was captured by the Confederate Catholics in 1645. The Irish held onto it until Cromwell’s “Ironsides” demolished the fortifications in 1652. The remains were finally burned to the ground in 1690, and the castle was abandoned and fell into decay.
Visiting Roscommon Castle
The castle is a national heritage monument. Entrance is free and it is freely accessed. The park nearby offers plays equipment for kids. Roscommon Abbey is on the outskirts town, reached by a path behind the historic Abbey Hotel (see Abbey Hotel Roscommon), where the tea room and bar is worth a stop. © Bargain Travel Europe
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