Qualla: Athclare Castle https://qualla.com/athclare-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Athclare Castle https://qualla.com/athclare-castle Athclare Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/athclare-castle/ Drive the M1 north from Drogheda and watch the east side of the road carefully. Just past Dunleer, set back among working farm buildings, a square stone tower rises four storeys above a cluster of slated roofs and uPVC windows. Athclare Castle has been standing on this spot since the 1550s, and what makes it strange is not the antiquity but the continuity. The arrow loops cut into the south wall still look out over the same fields the Barnewells defended five centuries ago, and someone, in a modern wing pressed against the old stone, still puts the kettle on each morning.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/athclare-castle-wp/gce6-athclare-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Athclare Castle: Built for a Dangerous Edge https://qualla.com/athclare-castle/ In the 1550s, County Louth was the rough hem of the Pale - the English-controlled district radiating out from Dublin, the line beyond which Tudor authority frayed and Gaelic Ireland reasserted itself. The Barnewells, an old Anglo-Norman family with deep Louth roots, needed a fort...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/athclare-castle-wp/gce6-athclare-castle-built-for-a-dangerous-edge.mp3 0:06 2 full Athclare Castle: Families and Conquests https://qualla.com/athclare-castle/ The Barnewells kept Athclare into the 17th century. By the 1650s, when the original structure was extended, the castle had passed to the Taaffes - another Old English Catholic family of the region. Then came Cromwell. The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the 1650s reshuffled la...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/athclare-castle-wp/gce6-athclare-castle-families-and-conquests.mp3 0:06 3 full Athclare Castle: Living Stones https://qualla.com/athclare-castle/ By the 1840s the castle was being adapted again. Out-buildings rose around the tower to form a north-facing courtyard. A two-storey house was eventually attached directly to the west wall. The result, today, is one of Ireland's more unusual surviving tower houses: a fortified med...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/athclare-castle-wp/gce6-athclare-castle-living-stones.mp3 0:06 4 full Athclare Castle: What Survives at Athclare https://qualla.com/athclare-castle/ Tower houses like Athclare were once everywhere in Ireland. The 16th century produced thousands of them, scattered across the country as the principal building type of the Gaelic and Old English gentry. Most are now ruins or rubble, picked over by farmers for stone or simply slum...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/athclare-castle-wp/gce6-athclare-castle-what-survives-at-athclare.mp3 0:06 5 full