Ireland · Partial ruin
Dún Dealgan Motte
Móta Dhún Dealgan
Dún Dealgan Motte is a medieval motte and National Monument on a ridge immediately northwest of Dundalk. The site preserves an earthwork motte built in the Norman period atop an earlier Gaelic fort hill; a southeast bailey and an internal souterrain are recorded. The place is associated in tradition with Cú Chulainn and later had an 18th-century castellated folly built on the summit.
Its prime
1210
Today
Partial ruin
As it stood in 1210
What Dún Dealgan Motte looked like in its prime.
A broad, turf-covered motte about 68 m across at the base and roughly 10 m high sits on a ridge overlooking the Castletown River and the northern approach. In its Norman-phase prime (c.1210) the summit was occupied by a wooden tower set within a continuous timber palisade; a bailey lay to the southeast defined by low earthen banks. The mound rises from grassy slopes and is backed by lines of trees along the ridge.
Its story
The story of Dún Dealgan Motte.
Dealga Before the Normans
A Gaelic dún once stood on this ridge north-west of Dundalk, above the Castletown River. Some legends claim the site as the birthplace of Cú Chulainn, and it is here that he bases himself in the Táin Bó Cúailgne; the Annals of the Four Masters place a battle on the spot in 500 AD. Early accounts call the place simply Dealga, and the element dún appears only after 1002, so a fort may not have stood on the hill until about that time. A Z-shaped souterrain, 17 metres long, was cut into the hill in the Gaelic period.
The Norman Motte and de Lacy's Flight from King John, 1210
The castle here was of the primitive motte-and-bailey type raised after the Norman invasion, a mound of earth topped by a wooden palisade and tower, and it is believed to have been built by Bertram III de Verdun, who died in 1192, with its bailey laid out to the south-east. The mound measures about 68 metres across at the base and stands 10 metres high, enough to give the tower on its summit a view of miles: a clear line of sight down to the Castletown River and out towards the northern route from Ulster. In 1210 the hill was a stronghold of Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster, but he left it when King John of England pursued him northwards.
Byrne's Folly on the Mound, 1780-1923
In 1780 a local landowner named Patrick Byrne began building a Gothic house on top of the mound. He was often called a pirate, much of his wealth being said to come from smuggling. The house was damaged in the rebellion of 1798, leaving only a castellated tower, Byrne's Folly. Thomas Vesey Dawson rebuilt the house in 1850 as a country retreat, but it fell into disrepair and was bought by the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society to be used as a museum. In the revolutionary period between 1919 and 1923 armed men deliberately set the building on fire. The mound is a national monument of Ireland.
Step inside
5 places to explore in 1210.
The record describes 5 distinct spots at Dún Dealgan Motte, including 1 interior: entrance to the z-shaped souterrain. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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