Ireland · Ruin
Burt Castle
Burt Castle is a solitary stone tower ruin standing on a rounded agricultural hill in County Donegal, Ireland. The surviving fabric is a single freestanding tower that dominates the surrounding fields and hedgerows.
Its prime
1600
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1600
What Burt Castle looked like in its prime.
A single freestanding stone tower sits on the rounded summit of a farmed hill, visible as a simple vertical mass against the sky. The tower has roughly vertical, window-poor masonry walls of local grey stone and a large arched ground-level opening on one face; the top appears open or partly ruined in the photograph. The setting is open pasture divided by hedgerows and low tree belts, with the tower isolated on the crest.
Its story
The story of Burt Castle.
Burt Castle was built in the sixteenth century, during the reign of Henry VIII, as a stronghold of the O'Dohertys, protecting the southern edge of their Inishowen lordship in east Donegal. Its design was strongly influenced by contemporary Scottish Z-plan fortifications, anticipating the style of buildings raised during the Ulster Plantation of the following century.
During a disputed succession in 1600 the Crown's Governor of Derry, Sir Henry Docwra, backed the fifteen-year-old Sir Cahir O'Doherty, who fought on the Crown's side in the Nine Years' War and was knighted for his bravery. Burt was a vital post: it controlled a strategic area that let Docwra bring in food supplies and open an offensive against Red Hugh O'Donnell, and a garrison of a hundred men under Captain John Vaughan was stationed there.
In 1608, after a dispute with the new Governor of Derry, O'Doherty rose in revolt with the castle as his headquarters; the Burning of Derry that April triggered what became known as O'Doherty's Rebellion. Troops sent from Dublin overran Inishowen, took Burt after a siege and freed the prisoners from Derry held there; O'Doherty was killed shortly afterwards at the Battle of Kilmacrennan. During the Williamite War the castle saw a skirmish between Jacobites and troops under General Percy Kirke.
Step inside
4 places to explore in 1600.
The record describes 4 distinct spots at Burt Castle, including 1 interior: shadowed interior threshold. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Burt Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1600, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Burt Castle.
The families that held Burt Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Stronghold of the O'Dohertys of Inishowen from its 16th-century construction until the collapse of O'Doherty's Rebellion in 1608.
