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Motes and Norman Castles in Ireland

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Motes and Norman Castles in Ireland 440 Julv Downloaded from Motes and Norman Castles in Ireland PART II. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ THE LOEDSHIP OF ULSTEK. A un Johan Uluestere, Si a force la peust conquere ; De Curci out a nun Johan, Ki pus i suffri meint ahan. E COURCY'S raid upon Downpatrick took place in 1177, and from this D time until 1204, when he was expelled by Hugh de Lacy the younger, at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 13, 2015 he was largely occupied, we may be sure, in making good and extending his foothold in the north-east of Ireland. Before the close of John's reign at any rate the maritime districts from the Boyne to the Bann seem to have been effectively planted. These included the counties of Down and Antrim (the ancient Uladh or Ulidia) and Louth, or English Uriel. The latter, however, was not eventually included in the lordship of Ulster, but was erected into a county by itself. The castles built in chis district within our period were probably very numerous, but I shall only mention those of whose existence we have distinct record. There are many large motes too of the distinctively Norman type, and several of them have the foundations of stone buildings on them. It is much to be desired that these should be critically examined. 1177. DU.N-DA-LETHGLAS : Downpatrick.—A castle was built here by John de Courcy in 1177, soon after he surprised and took the town.14' The great mote lies a little more than a quarter of a mile almost due north of the cathedral, and is separated from the hill on which the town stands by low flat ground. It has never been adequately described,140 but it appears to have been shaped out of a natural hill, which has doubtless been scarped into its present form, and must, in De Courey's time, have risen like an island out of the swamps of the river Quoyle. The mote, said to be ' sixty feet in conical height' (I suppose measured along the slope), is piled up on the highest point and is surrounded by a 115 Ann. Loch Ci', Ann. Vlst., Four Masters, 1177 ; Gir. Cambr. vol. v. p. 343 (De Courcy flies for refuge ad castrnm siium). 1(0 The fort is described and figured in Molyneux's Discourse concerning Danish Mounts (Dublin, 1755). The measurements given by Mr. Milligan (Journ. R.S.A.I. 1891, p. nS2) and by Mr. Westropp (Trans. R.I.A. vol. xxxi.) seem to have been taken from .-1 Tour in Ireland (Dublin, 1780), p. 827. Mr. Westropp's sketch appears to have been copied from Moiyneux, but he adds a plan. 1907 MOTES AND NORMAN CASTLES IN IRELAND 441 fosse. The bailey nearly surrounds the mote, apparently following the lie of the hill, and is itself enclosed by a bank, then, at a lower level, by a broad ditch with a bank on the counterscarp. The origin of this fortress has been the subject of much discussion, Mr. Westropp main- taining that it was the rath of Celtchar, son of Uthechar, a hero of the clan Bury (circa the Incarnation), while Mrs. Armitage would ascribe it to John de Courcy. I need not recapitulate the arguments.147 For my part I see no reason to doubt that it was the site of John de Courcy's Downloaded from castruin or caislen, erected soon after his defeat of the Ulidian king Donnsleibhe, called Dunlevus by Giraldus. Whether there was a pre- existing fort on the hill or not seems to me of small importance. If there was one it must have been largely remodelled, as the existing earthworks appear to be of distinctively Norman type. As Mr. Westropp, http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ however, specially relies on this case to prove the prehistoric origin of what he calls ' complex motes,' or ' motes with an annexe ' (bailey), I have looked into the alleged identification, and it seems clear to me that the rath known in pre-Norman times as Bath Celtchair was in the town of Down itself, and surrounded the early monastery and the present cathedral. Here are the proofs. Between the years 1202 and 1204 John de Courcy made a grant to Eadulphus, then bishop, the abbot of St. Patrick, and their successors, of the ecclesia sanctae Trinitatis in Bathkelter.148 There is no doubt that this refers to the Church of St. at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 13, 2015 Patrick (as De Courcy renamed it), now represented by the Cathedral of Down, beside which stood the ancient round tower of the monastery. This would seem to be in itself conclusive. Bath Celtchair was in fact the rath mentioned by Mr. Westropp, within which the ancient monastery was intrenched. In 1111 'Dun-da-lethglas was burned by lightning, both rath and trian' UD (i.e. ' the third part,' perhaps the lay third of the town). The inference is that the rath and the trian were in physical contact. Other indications point the same way. The ' Life of St. Brigid,' by Animosus, describes Down as civitas posita in rcgione Ultorum prope mare, nomine Dun-da-lethghlas quae jviscis tamporibus Aras Kealtuir • . vocabatur.l:'° So in the Tcstamentum Patricii, which Archbishop Ussher describes as vctitstissimis Ilibernicis versibus expressum, the saint is made to prophesy (as translated), Duniun ubi crit inea rcsurrectio in colic (the Irish is rath) Celtaris jilii Duacli.'1''1 Prophecy-mongers know 117 See Jomn. U.S.A.I. 1004, p. 322, and 1905, p. 40-3 ; and English Historical Review, vol. xx. p. 711. "" This deed is calendared in Pat. noils, Ed. I, 1342, p. 509. The passage quoted is transcribed in Beeves' Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down and Connor, pp. 143,1G5, and cf. p. 41. Kalph was bishop from 1202 to 1213, and John de Courcy was expelled about the close of 1204. This fixes the date. The grant however is very likely only a confirmation of a previous one to Bishop Malachy III; cf. Ware's Bishops of Ireland. •*' Ann. Ulst., Ann. Loch CV, Four Masters, 1111. Armagh was built on the same plnn, with rath and trians. Ann. Loch Ci, 1074 (where see Hennessy's note) and 1112. 150 Trias Thaumaturga, p. 563, col. 1 (ants = residence). 151 I quote from Bishop Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 225. The Irish is. Dun i mbia m'escirgi, a Baith Celtair mic Duach. See Ussher's Works, vol. vi. p. 457. And so Ussher understands arx Lcatli-glaijsse to mean Urbs Duensis (ibid. p. 450). In fact the identification cf Rath Celtclmir with the mote seems to be a com- 442 MOTES AND NORMAN CASTLES July their trade better than to assert that St. Patrick predicted his resurrec- tion in a pagan fort unhallowed by the presence of his church. As to the monticulus of Jocelin, of which so much is made by Mr. Westropp, if it really refers to the mote hill, as seems probable, the inference I should draw is that when the passage was written 1S2 the name Dun or Dun- dalethglas was applied, as we might expect, both to the old town about the cathedral and to the new ' burg' that was growing up under De Courcy's fortress, and that Jocelin's story about the two broken fetters is Downloaded from simply a philological effort on his part to account for the ambiguous name.153 MAGH COBHA.—The English of the Castle of Moy Cova (as the name is anglicised) are mentioned in the Irish annals as making a raid into ls 1 Tyrone in 1188. ' The exact castle site has not been determined, but http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ O'Donovan identified Moy Cova with a plain in the barony of Iveagh, to the north of Newry. It seems probable that the great mote called the Crown Rath, about a mile and a half from Newry, may represent the castle. This mote is described as 112 feet high, with a flat top of oblong form, and surrounded by a fosse twenty feet broad and ten deep. On the south side of the fosse is a square platform surrounded by an in- trenchment.155 One of De Courcy's battles was fought at Newry.158 A later castle was erected at Magh Cobha in 1252 and destroyed in the next year. at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 13, 2015 1193. DOMHNACH MAIGHEN : Donaghmoyne, a townland and parish in the barony of Farney, co. Monaghan. The Annals of Loch 06 record the erection of a castle here in 1193, and the Annals of Ulster state that in 1244 ' it was covered [or cased] with stone' (do chumhdach do chlo- chaibh). This castle under the name Dunelamein is repeatedly mentioned in the Calendar during the period 1228 to 1242. It had belonged to William Pipard, but was burnt down by the Irish, and the services of Meath and Uriel were ordered to be given to Ralph FitzNicholas (who had the custody of William Pipard's lands and heir), to aid him ' to fortify a stone castle' there. This appears not to have been done until after 1242, when a similar order was made in favour of Ralph's son. In 1802 Ralph Pipard surrendered all his castles to the king, including that of paratively late idea and entirely at variance with the early records. See Battle of Magh Hath, p. 207, note. '" Jocelin's ' Life of Patrick ' is stated in the proem to have been undertaken at the command of Thomas, archbishop of Armagh.
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