Mrs. Todd’s Class ‘The Roadrunners’
are from North Carolina in the USA.
They have a blog called
‘Going Global as Rocky River’.
Click here to see their learning about castles.
They said:
‘We know there are special castles out there
so let us hear from you…’
So here is what we know about the castles in our local area:
There used be three castles in Greystones,
where we live, that we are sure of.
Now two are in ruins and there some evidence
that the third castle once existed.
Let us tell you about our castles.
1. The first one is Rathdown Castle
The very first visitors to Greystones,
came during the Stone Age.
They didn’t stay where our town is today,
but instead they stayed at a place now called Rathdown,
just to the north.
We think these early settlers
chose to live north of Greystones because
– it was more sheltered.
– There were the advantages of living
beside the sea and
– having a fresh water spring nearby.
– Woodland birds and animals
could have been a source of food.
Unlike ourselves, these early residents
couldn’t afford to be too choosy.
In the Bronze age King Heremon came
and built a fortification
in this sheltered spot in 1699BC.
Joachim S. Müller via Compfight
Rath means fort in Irish.
This is where the area of Rathdown gets its name.
Many hundreds of years later The Normans built
a proper castle at Rathdown.
This isn’t THE castle but this is what
it probably looked like as it was a Norman castle.
The wild Wicklow tribes, the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles
burnt down the castle in 1301.
Jeff Cutler via Compfight
However it was rebuilt again from 1308
by other Norman families.
In 1534, a castle,
20 houses,
a watermill
and a creek were recorded at Rathdown.
In the 19th century a crazy landowner
started dismantling the castle
to make walls and sheds on his farm.
Cole Henley via Compfight
His name was Colonel Tarrant
and we feel he has a lot to answer for,
as he destroyed our heritage.
Finally the last stones of the castle were used
to make a railway bridge in the 1850s.
Broo_am (Andy B) via Compfight
Aerial photographs of the fields
where the castle once stood show
outlines of ancient fields, houses, paths and roads.
2. Kindlestown Castle:
About fifty years before Rathdown Castle was built,
Kindlestown Castle was built
sometime around 1225.
In 1377 the wild O’Byrnes captured the castle.
It was taken back and in 1402
the O’Byrnes tried to capture the castle again
but were defeated.
3. Killincarrig Castle
Killincarrig Castle was a manor house
built slightly later again, about 1620.
This manor seemed a popular place
for both military and rebels to stay over the centuries.
During the Eleven Years War (1641-1653)
the castle became a stronghold
by the Catholic Confederates.
After that in 1649, Oliver Cromwell
an English leader.
He was considered to be a hero in England,
but a villain in Ireland, responsible for
great loss of life in Ireland.
He spent a night in Killincarrig Castle.
He posted some troops there
while he went south in search of his horse
which had been stolen by the Irish rebels.
Later in history, during the 1798 rebellion,
the Irish rebels hid there after to avoid getting caught!
Some of us have visited this ruin.
It is in a lady’s back garden and is a protected structure.
Evidence of Killincarrig’s past has been found
such as old muskets, pistol balls, gunpowder measures
and other such equipment which were found in
and around the castle.
We think we are lucky to live in a place
that has such a rich history.
However we are glad that all the war
and fighting are over.
Would any of you have liked to live in a castle in the Medieval Time period? We have found out that castles were built for protection during those years and for the rich. Later in the 18th and 19th and 20th century the places listed as castles weren’t for protection they were just really large homes for the rich. They didn’t have the moat which was around many for protection.
We connected to books we had read like Harry Potter and some Magic Tree Houses , movies (like Walt Disney movies- Frozen, Cinderella) and video games (Minecraft).
Cian visited a castle in County Cork called Barrystown. The lord and lady used to sleep in their bed sitting up. The children slept under the bed. If you were an unwelcome visitor they used throw hot tar or rocks down into the entrance at you. Then there was a dungeon with just one way in … and no way out, so we think we would prefer not to live in a castle in Medieval Times.