Qualla: Aghalard Castle

Aghalard Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Garry Dickinson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Around 1490, descendants of the McDonnells of Knocknacloy, a Scottish family that had crossed to Ireland and taken service as gallowglass warriors for the Norman Irish Burkes of Mayo, built themselves a tower house in the country south of Castlebar. The result was Aghalard Castle: three storeys of stone topped with square turrets, the whole structure enclosed by a bawn, a defensive walled courtyard. It stood at the meeting point of two worlds, Scottish and Hiberno-Norman, military and domestic, and for the next four centuries it stayed in McDonnell hands. The story of how it changed owners reads like a small piece of Irish political history compressed into one building.

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Image: Garry Dickinson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aghalard Castle: The Gallowglass Who Stayed

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dougf, CC BY-SA 2.0. The gallowglass were a particular kind of medieval Irish institution: heavy infantry, mostly of Scottish Hebridean and West Highland origin, who hired out their fighting skills to Irish lords. They appeared in the thirteenth century and remained a fixture of Irish warfare for thr...

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Image: dougf | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aghalard Castle: The Siege of 1596

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dougf, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1596, during the chaotic late stages of the Nine Years War, a combined force took Aghalard Castle. The attackers included Edward Brabazon, the 1st Baron Ardee; Ulick Burke, the 3rd Earl of Clanricarde; and James Riabhach Darcy. The capture was brief. Word reached the occupiers...

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Image: dougf | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aghalard Castle: The Stout Plan of a Tower House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dougf, CC BY-SA 2.0. Aghalard followed the standard plan of late medieval Irish tower houses: three storeys of solid stone, square turrets at the corners for flanking fire, and a defensive enclosure or bawn around the base. These structures were built by the thousand across Ireland in the fifteenth a...

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Image: dougf | CC BY-SA 2.0

Aghalard Castle: From McDonnell to Guinness

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dougf, CC BY-SA 2.0. Aghalard remained in McDonnell ownership through the upheavals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the Cromwellian conquest, the Williamite War, the imposition of the Penal Laws. Many older Irish families lost their land entirely during these centuries. The McDonnells he...

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Image: dougf | CC BY-SA 2.0