Qualla: Athcarne Castle

Athcarne Castle: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. On the night of 30 June 1690, King James II of England probably slept at Athcarne Castle. The next morning he rode six miles north to the River Boyne, where his army would lose to the forces of his son-in-law William of Orange in the battle that decided the religious and political future of Ireland for the next 230 years. Athcarne stands ruined now in a field outside Duleek, but the bones of an Elizabethan tower house still rise above the Hurley River, and according to local belief the place is still haunted by the ghost of the king who lost everything the next day.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Athcarne Castle: The Cairn at the Ford

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The name Athcarne comes from the Irish Áth Cairn - the fording point at the cairn - or alternatively from Ard Cairn, the high cairn. There is a Bronze Age burial mound just southeast of the castle, across the river, and the Meath historian Beryl Moore argued that the castle itsel...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Athcarne Castle: Hugh and the Judge

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1172, the Anglo-Norman knight Hugo de Bathe - from Bath in Somerset - was granted Athcarne by Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath. He probably built the first defensive structure on the site, which evolved over centuries into a tower house. In 1590, the property got its most dramatic ...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Athcarne Castle: Cromwell on the Nanny

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Drumgowna, CC BY-SA 4.0. Everything changed on 31 August 1649. That morning Oliver Cromwell marched north from Dublin with 12,000 men to take Drogheda from the Royalists. The Boyne valley was the gateway to the north, and a series of small rivers and castles controlled the approaches. The River Nanny ran...

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Image: Drumgowna | CC BY-SA 4.0

Athcarne Castle: The King Who Lost

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Under the Second Act of Settlement in 1662, the confiscated Bathe estates were transferred to the Duke of York - James Stuart, brother of King Charles II and future King James II. James kept the prime Dublin estates outright but let the Bathe family rent Athcarne back from him in...

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Image: Public domain

Athcarne Castle: Gutted at Auction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kieran Campbell, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Bathe family eventually left around 1700, after the lease ran out. The Garnetts owned the castle for the next century; the Gernon family bought it around 1830 and remodelled it heavily, demolishing the 1590 Elizabethan mansion but keeping the older tower house and adding a so...

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Image: Kieran Campbell | CC BY-SA 2.0