Forts and Castles Dan Cruickshank's Written in Stone

The story of the buildings of Ulster is the story of the people

who've lived on this land and left their mark on its history.

And here, history has left us with a remarkable legacy of buildings.

From ancient forts and mighty castles,

to prestigious public buildings and grand country houses.

These historic buildings are windows into our past.

In this series, I'm going to explore some of the most remarkable architecture of Ulster,

tell the stories of the people who created it

and see how both buildings and people were shaped by history.

GENTLE BIRDSONG

From earliest times, the turbulent history of Ulster has left us

a landscape altered by buildings, which tell of invasion,

conquest and resistance.

For centuries a stronghold has crowned this summit,

overlooking Lough Swilly in County Donegal.

This was once the Royal Fort of the Kingdom of Aileach,

defended by the Ui Neill dynasty, the Gaelic lords of Ulster.

The name means "fortress" or "stone palace of the sun."

So surely originally this was a sacred site.

The manipulation of the landscape by man, the earthworks,

the creation of concentric rings of terraces and ramparts

date from nearly 3,000 years ago.

But the commanding site, the elevated location, makes this

a perfect fortress, a wonderful defensive place, a place of refuge.

It's utterly incredible here.

As for the structure, this really is the most impressive monument

to Gaelic society in Ulster.

Extraordinary.

Three tiers of walkways reached by the most wonderful, minimal,

elegant staircases there, there and over there.

This stonework is thought to date in its origin

from the 5th, 6th century AD. About 1,500 years ago.

Such massive stone buildings were of course very rare.

This is a great statement of power on the path of the Northern O'Neill.

One of the largest hillforts in Ireland

is an imposing presence on this windblown crest.

Three of the nine counties of Ulster can be seen from these walls.

The Irish annals tell us that such was Aileach's political

and strategic importance that it was attacked several times.

These walls were mostly reconstructed in the 1870s.

That's because in 1101,

when the King of Munster, Muirchertach Ua Briain,

attacked this place and took it by storm,

he ordered the soldiers to destroy it.

Each man was to carry off at least one stone and scatter them

on the grounds around.

The annals' description of the destruction of this site by raiders

shows us how a need for defence shaped the landscape of Ulster

from the earliest times.

Despite incursions by the Vikings,

it wasn't until the late 12th century that a new threat

to the traditional Gaelic order in Ulster would leave its mark.

In February, 1177, the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy

launched a daring invasion of Ulster.

The Irish were no match for de Courcy's crossbowmen and archers.

With only 22 knights and 300 foot soldiers,

the eastern coastal province was soon largely under his control.

It was here, at Carrickfergus, that de Courcy built his largest

and most strategically-placed castle.

And he built it out of stone.

So the Anglo-Normans not only invaded Ulster,

they brought with them a new style of building.

With this mighty fortress, de Courcy sent a determined message

to the native Irish outside the castle's walls,

that he and his men were not just passing through,

they were here to stay.

When built, the sea would have almost completely surrounded the castle.

The Anglo-Normans constructed a series of earthen mounds,

known as mottes, topped with timber palisades to form strong castles.

They were part of a system of defences

with Carrickfergus at its strategic centre.

Well, the tower, the keep, completed about 1180,

I must say it's one of the greatest bits of Anglo-Norman

military architecture anywhere in the British Isles.

That's a major architectural statement, saying we're here

to stay, both in terms of defensive capabilities and also in status.

The walls are roughly 90 feet high,

-they're three to four metres thick.

-Really, through here?

-Yes.

And of course, I suppose for the local people,

when this was built it was terrifying, alien, foreign,

-military, kind of oppressive architecture.

-Absolutely.

They had never seen anything like this.

They wouldn't be used to attacking something like this.

It would have dominated the skyline from out to sea,

from the mountains, and they wouldn't have known how to deal with it.

I mean, one can still see it just in one's mind's eye,

maybe as people saw it.

Looking up, it's sinister, daunting, huge, isn't it?

So the towers stood in a high walled court or ward.

So it really was defence in depth.

It was and within this defended space it was really busy.

There would have been a chapel,

there was a great hall for entertaining,

there were kitchens, storage for weapons and horses,

accommodation for the soldiers that were here as well.

It would have been a hive of activity.

So the great hall behind you, that's the family, high status.

But also they occupy the rooms in the tower.

That's what I really want to see. How they lived there.

This is the third floor, top floor of the tower.

This was the family's apartments, the private part.

This was the private space of the Lord and his family.

You have to imagine that it would be more colourful,

maybe with tapestries and paintings.

Their own fireplace, tables and chairs for eating.

-Maybe screens to zone off the bed.

-Yeah.

A chest where their private belongings were in,

and also a private staircase so they could come up here in private.

As de Courcy's powerbase, this was it. From here he ruled.

-Absolutely.

-From this stronghold.

Carrickfergus was his main base

and his soldiers had mottes dotted around County Antrim and County Down.

He also founded a castle at Dundrum.

The thing to understand these castles,

this was the centre of a system of defences

reaching far out into the land controlled by him.

You can really imagine standing here,

de Courcy and his family, looking through these actual windows,

surveying their domain, looking to the sea to ships coming in.

But it was de Courcy's hunger for power which obsessed him

for over a quarter of a century that was to bring about his downfall.

Suspicious of de Courcy's power in Ulster,

where he ruled as a petty prince,

King John in 1199 ordered another baron, Hugh de Lacy,

to eject de Courcy.

A five-year campaign followed which terminated with de Courcy

losing this castle and being driven out of Ulster.

By the start of the 14th century,

the Anglo-Norman conquest in Ireland had ground to a halt.

Over time, these invaders would marry into

and make alliances with the native Irish,

in time, becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves.

But for now, they were contained in their coastal strongholds.

But other invaders were to follow.

Next came the Scots, led by Edward,

the brother of King Robert the Bruce.

The Scots wanted to not only possess Ireland,

but also to distract English forces away from the border with Scotland.

Initially, the Scots swept all before them,

and after a year-long siege, they took this castle.

By 1316, their grip on Ulster was complete.

'But such are the fortunes of war that just two years later

'Edward the Bruce lay dead on a battlefield in County Louth,

'killed in the decisive Battle of Faughart.

'The Anglo-Normans had regained control,

'and the Scottish invasion was finally halted.'

The narrow sea between Scotland and Ireland was not so much a barrier

as a channel of communication and kinship in the Middle Ages.

These Gaelic-speaking kingdoms had cultural - if not political - unity.

Scottish mercenaries were employed by Gaelic lords.

Among them were the MacDonnells,

Hebridean Scots who established a foothold in Ulster.

From the early 16th century,

the Glens of Antrim formed part of a powerful Gaelic lordship that

stretched from North Ulster to the Western Isles of Scotland.

From Dunluce Castle, perched high on its rock above the ocean,

the MacDonnell clan, led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell, plotted ways

in which to retain their lands

during the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland.

In September 1584, an Elizabethan army laid siege to Dunluce.

2,000 soldiers subjected the castle's garrison to a fierce bombardment.

It held out for two days before being forced to surrender,

leaving Sorley Boy MacDonnell with no choice but to flee to Scotland.

But retreat didn't sit easily with the MacDonnells' leader.

On Halloween night 1585, 80 Scots, led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell,

landed just about there, and then, in stealth,

scaled the cliffs and ramparts and entered the castle.

They used ropes, it is thought,

that had been let down from here by the constable's mistress.

She was also a Scot.

The constable fought ferociously to defend himself.

Eventually, he was overpowered,

and for his trouble was hanged from the castle walls.

Sorley Boy was a fearsome fighter,

but he was also a skilled politician.

In spite of the mask of his family and followers on Rathlin Island,

he would later declare allegiance to Queen Elizabeth.

This was a small price to pay for recognition of his family's rights

to the Glens and the return of this castle to the MacDonnells' control.

You get a whole series of MacDonnells being involved in this place

-really since about 1555 onwards.

-Yeah.

Sorley Boy's probably the best known, for a whole variety of reasons.

One of the reasons is that he's involved in a whole

series of conflicts, his kids are killed, he's constantly fighting.

But a very strong, a very dynamic and a very interesting character.

How much is this building, this castle a monument to him?

Maybe not so much a monument to him per se,

but a monument to the broader family.

The castle itself would have been originally

built in about the year 1500 by a family called the McQuillans.

When the MacDonnells come in in 1555,

they essentially rebuild the whole of the castle, but the interesting

thing is that they rebuild it in a classically Scottish style.

It's really the gatehouse which is the primary

manifestation of Scottish architecture on the castle itself.

The external cobbling, the shape of it,

very typical of Scottish architecture at this particular period.

But what the MacDonnells do is rebuild

the rest of the castle as well.

This building we see in front of us, built in 1608 by Randal MacDonnell.

But a really interesting change takes place here.

What we see here is very typically Scottish architecture,

but what we're looking at here is very typically English architecture.

-Yes.

-The MacDonnells had perceived themselves as Scottish,

were showing themselves externally as being Scottish.

Now, with the changing fortunes, they've reorientated

themselves towards London, and now they're English.

Here, very typically early Jacobean house.

All expressed in the architecture.

So, Randal, who becomes the 1st Earl of Antrim,

must have had great plans for the castle and the surrounding territory

-to express his new status, power?

-Absolutely.

Randal becomes probably the most important player in this whole story.

Randal invests heavily in this place,

he invests heavily right across his whole estates.

He begins to start rebuilding towns, re-establishing towns,

and builds a whole new town around the outside of the castle wall.

That's very pioneering for the Plantation system, isn't it?

-So, 1608, 1609, he starts building here?

-Absolutely.

Our traditional view of the Ulster Plantation is that the vast majority

of it is concentrated west of the River Bann,

when the London Companies come in and build their towns and small villages.

But what we have here in this part of Ulster is an "old Gaelic lord",

beginning to invest in his own unofficial plantation,

with the full approval of the king at the time.

Does it have its own defensive wall or rampart, maybe earth?

This again is one of the real interesting elements of it.

Randal saw no need to build a wall around his town.

Yet, 15km from this location, the London Companies

build a very substantial rampart around Coleraine, for example.

But remember, the MacDonnells had been here for 50 or 60 years.

They weren't afraid of the locals per se. They were the locals.

So they felt very secure in their place and their sense of place.

So, just outside those walls, just beyond those walls, are the remains,

the ghost remains, of a lost town,

a town very important in the history of Ulster.

When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603,

the canny Catholic MacDonnells

retained control of their lands in Ireland because they cultivated

good relations with her successor, King James I.

This king's grand design to plant Ulster with English

and Scottish settlers was about to change everything.

The Scots brought a different language, culture and faith,

all of which transformed the society

and appearance of the places in which they chose to settle.

Into a hostile landscape, the next wave of Scots

brought their craftsmen, their builders and architects.

They've left us with striking reminders of the Plantation.

One of the finest, the castle at Monea in County Fermanagh.

The castle was completed in 1618 for the Reverend Malcolm Hamilton,

a Scottish clergyman who was later appointed

an archbishop here in Ireland.

Now, we know about the construction date

because in 1690, the newly-built castle

was inspected by Captain Nicholas Pinner,

a government-appointed surveyor of the Plantation.

Pinner came here, saw the castle, approved it,

thought it strong,

its wall built of stone and lime in a splendid manner,

but he recommended that it be made stronger still

by the addition of a bawn, a fortified wall -

the remains of which we can still see over there.

Ah. Now, here's the front door.

Lovely thing.

It was defended by murder holes up there underneath the arch.

Horrible things being dropped

through those holes on the attackers -

boiling oil or something filthier -

and I've also seen here...

Look at this. ..a little loop hole for musketry.

So anyone trying to attack the front door being shot in the back

by a musket coming through here.

The main door opening was originally rather grand -

lovely mouldings here framing the opening

and the door itself would have been secured by some sort of bolts,

I suppose, into these recesses. And then...

Ah, here in front of me.

..the remains of a great spiral staircase

with stone treads leading upwards.

And here... Well, the castle was three storeys high.

This floor, the ground floor, would have been sort of storage,

I suppose, supplies, to sustain the garrison and family

in case of siege, maybe a well somewhere.

And up here, of course, the main kitchen.

And we can see that because there's the remains here

of the great arch above the fireplace

where the cooking would have taken place.

And here in one corner of the kitchen,

a little staircase connecting to the great hall above,

the reception rooms on the first floor.

There would have been a great big fireplace there, wood logs blazing.

Wonderful. A big window there throwing light onto a glorious room.

Strangely, I suppose -

strange if we think of the Scottish as a model this building -

this castle was thatched.

The family here would have lived in comfort and some style.

Colourful tapestries, painted furniture,

presumably whitewashed walls - bright, airy, colourful, and gay.

It would have been a very lovely and cosy home.

Now, sadly, a gaunt ruin.

When tensions between the native Irish and planters finally erupted

in the rebellion of 1641, panic spread through the new settlers.

They retreated behind the walls of their strong houses

as the old Gaelic order attempted to reclaim those confiscated lands.

Here in Fermanagh,

the Maguires attacked all the Plantation settlements.

The castle was defended in depth.

The outer defence was this bawn wall here.

So attackers coming from the open ground over there

would have been fired upon from the higher castle behind

and then here, men, musketeers, standing on top of the bawn,

would have fired through loop holes on the attackers

just about over there. And when they're very near,

men in this tower that projects forward off the bawn wall

would have fired along the base of the wall,

offering a deadly fusillade enfilading fire.

That area would have been a frightful killing ground.

The records of the time were sketchy at best.

One account claimed over 100 people died here.

But another suggests that when Monea was attacked by the Maguires,

only eight of its defenders were killed.

The castle itself seems to have been taken,

but then recaptured not long afterwards.

Not far from Monea, on the shores of Loch Erne,

is the beautifully-sited Tully Castle.

Tully was also assessed by the government inspector,

Captain Nicholas Pinner,

who tells us that Sir John Hume had built a fair strong castle,

a bawn, and a village for 24 families.

Strong houses like these

are wonderful sort of documents in stone.

They tell us so much about the people that built them,

who occupied them in the early years, they're big statements

in the landscape, proclaiming the presence of these people.

But also in their fortifications,

they seem to suggest the people here were, to a certain degree,

fearful, felt themselves to be interlopers in an alien land.

I would always point out defence is not the primary aspect of these.

These are houses, strong houses, which is a better term.

One has to think of them as that, with security built-in.

-And they could be seen from long distances.

-Yeah.

Don't forget, at that time, in the early 17th century,

they had no such roads as we understand, they had track roads.

So you would approach the house like this going across the hills

and you would have seen the house as a silhouette in the background,

you know, against the sky, and you would have followed it.

Yes. Of course, that's very important.

The other thing they proclaim is where people came from.

They came from Scotland. They're very Scottish, aren't they, in their detail?

Absolutely. And they're exactly the same.

I mean, essentially, these Scottish settlers,

the Humes here, from Berwick,

came in here and they came here with all their tenants, of course,

and they came with their workers,

they came here with all their equipment, don't forget,

and this area here we know from the records was largely forest and bog.

So they came here with everything, you know.

They had to do everything from scratch.

I mean, the whole big difference of the early 17th century

is this bringing in new ideas, rooms for different functions...

-apartments, in a sense, within the one house.

-Right.

-So you have a lot of different functional rooms.

-Yes.

And this outwork here, the bawn very much a fortification.

When the Plantations took place here in the early 17th century,

they were given their lands on the condition that they had to do, fulfil various things.

They had to plant the land with people and so forth,

and build a house or a strong house, and they have to build a bawn.

-As it turned out, in 1641, it was a good idea.

-Yeah.

On Christmas Eve, 1641,

Rory Maguire, with around 800 armed men, arrived outside the castle.

Inside were Lady Hume,

her son and her Protestant tenants from the nearby village.

Maguire demanded the castle yield.

A parlay took place and terms were agreed.

Years later, Lady Hume said the terms agreed under oath

were that in return for the surrender of the castle,

the lives of its occupants would be spared,

they would be left in possession of their property

and guaranteed safe conduct to places of their own choosing.

But during that terrible winter of 1641,

promises made proved hard to keep.

As soon as Maguire's men were inside the castle,

they rounded up the villagers, took away their arms

and bunged them into this room, this vaulted room, the kitchen.

And then, after a night, I suppose, of terror, that door opened,

the morning of Christmas Day, and in came some of Maguire's men.

And they set upon the villagers sleeping and cowering in this room.

Nearly 70 women and children were killed and 16 men,

some in here, some dragged outside and butchered in the courtyard,

left to die in the freezing conditions.

And then the castle was set on fire.

Lady Hume, her son and the agent were spared.

They had not been imprisoned in here but elsewhere

and they went on their way.

They, the Humes, never returned to this castle, the scene of massacre.

Quite understandable.

So from that day until now it's remained a ruin,

a haunted place indeed.

58 years later, it was the memory of the 1641 massacres

that motivated the Protestant settlers of Londonderry

to take refuge behind the walls of their city

from James II's advancing Catholic army.

The walls are the enduring symbol of the Plantation.

They were completed in 1618 and are, indeed, the last city walls

constructed in the British Isles.

They are magnificent, although, it must be said,

not really the latest word in military technology when completed.

But then, they were not intended to defend the city from attack

from a modern army equipped with massive guns,

but really to protect the citizens from raiding Gaelic lords.

Although Derry's walls were considered vulnerable,

they had survived sieges in the past.

Now they were put to the test as never before,

during the great siege of 1689.

The walls were the ultimate defensive bulwark

of the Williamite garrison against the army of James II.

The fact the town withstood a siege of 105 days is a testimony,

of course, to the defenders

but also to the robust construction of the walls.

The successful defence of Derry

and the battles that followed, notably the Boyne,

mark a decisive moment in the history of Ireland,

of the British Isles, indeed, of Europe.

These walls, these strong defensive walls,

are indeed the pivot of history.

The end of Williamite Wars brought relative peace to Ireland

and removed the need for castles and walls,

defensive structures motivated by fear.

The 18th century saw the growth of the political power

of the Protestant Ascendancy.

The wealth of this elite fuelled the creation

of a building type new in Ulster -

the lavish country house.

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