Qualla: Castlecaulfield

Castlecaulfield: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan C. Kremer, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1611, a Crown officer named Sir Toby Caulfeild began building a country house on land that had belonged for centuries to the O'Donnelly clan, marshals to the O'Neills of Tyrone. He called the new building Castle Caulfield, but it was not actually a castle. It was an Oxfordshire-style manor house with Tudor mullioned windows and a few defensive flourishes including murder holes above the gatehouse: a thoroughly English statement of confidence dropped into the Tyrone countryside. Thirty years later, the Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out and the building was burned almost to a shell. Saint Oliver Plunkett later ordained Catholic priests in its grounds. John Wesley preached here several times in the late 1700s. And in the small churchyard a few yards away lies a remarkable piece of literary history. The village of Castlecaulfield, population a few hundred, has lived through more than most.

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: Stefan C. Kremer | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castlecaulfield: Ballydonnelly

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rena Maguire, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before it was Castlecaulfield it was Ballydonnelly, Baile Uí Dhonnaíle in Irish, the place of the O'Donnellys. The O'Donnellys served as marshals to the O'Neills of Tyrone for centuries; in Gaelic tradition the family was part of the Cenél nEoghain, kin of the O'Neills themselves...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: Rena Maguire | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castlecaulfield: Sir Toby's Manor

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir Toby Caulfeild had served in the Crown forces during the Nine Years' War and was rewarded with the Manor of Aghloske, as Castlecaulfield was then called. He built the house between 1611 and 1619 in the style of an Oxfordshire country manor, which made it strikingly different ...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castlecaulfield: The Fire Of 1641

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the night of 22 October 1641, the long-simmering grievances of dispossessed Irish landowners erupted into general rebellion across Ulster. Castle Caulfield was attacked and badly damaged by fire. After the rebellion was suppressed, the Caulfeild descendants used the building o...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castlecaulfield: Plunkett, Walker, And Wesley

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit yeowatzup, CC BY 2.0. Three figures of strikingly different traditions are associated with the village. Saint Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh from 1669 to 1681, conducted ordinations of Catholic priests in the ruined grounds of Castle Caulfield under the protection of William Caulfeild,...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: yeowatzup | CC BY 2.0

Castlecaulfield: The Burial Of Sir John Moore

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HENRY CLARK, CC BY-SA 2.0. From 1818 to his death in 1823, the curate of Donaghmore Parish, based in Castlecaulfield, was a young clergyman named Charles Wolfe. He was 27 years old when he wrote, in 1816, a short poem titled The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna. It begins, "Not a drum was heard, not ...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: HENRY CLARK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castlecaulfield: Seventeenth Summer

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clemensfranz, CC BY 2.5. On 15 March 1921, an American author named Maureen Daly was born in Castlecaulfield. Her family emigrated to Wisconsin when she was a child, but she returned to Ireland sometimes. In 1942 she wrote a novel called Seventeenth Summer, an honest portrait of a young woman's first rom...

Read more: Castlecaulfield on Qualla

Image: Clemensfranz | CC BY 2.5