Qualla: Dunaneeny Castle https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Dunaneeny Castle https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle Dunaneeny Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. The name in Irish is Dun an Aonaigh, which translates as 'fort of the assembly' or, more evocatively, 'fort of the fair'. That second translation is the better one. In 1571, on the headland above Ballycastle Bay where the castle stood, Sorley Boy MacDonnell hosted public games to celebrate the coming-of-age of his nephew Gillaspick. One of the events was bullfighting. Young Gillaspick, eager to prove himself, tried his hand at it and was gored to death. The games went on. The annual gathering on this ground evolved over the following decades into Ballycastle's Ould Lammas Fair, still held every August, still drawing sixty thousand people. The castle that hosted that first tragic celebration now stands in ruins above a caravan park, the walls barely two metres high.

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Dunaneeny Castle: Above Port Brittas https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. Dunaneeny was established by Alexander MacDonnell on a commanding headland above the bay then known as Port Brittas, the safe harbour where Hebridean galleys from Kintyre and the Inner Hebrides could be drawn up under the cliffs. The castle's strategic logic was simple. By contro...

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-above-port-brittas.mp3 0:06 2 full Dunaneeny Castle: Sorley Boy's Birthplace https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. Tradition names Dunaneeny as the birthplace of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, born around 1505, the man who would become the most famous chieftain in Antrim history. Sorley Boy survived the Battle of Glentaisie in 1565 just outside Ballycastle, where his brothers James and Angus were kil...

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-sorley-boys-birthplace.mp3 0:06 3 full Dunaneeny Castle: Watching the Rathlin Massacre https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. The grimmest moment in Dunaneeny's history did not happen at the castle itself but in front of it, on the sea below. In 1575, an English force under the command of John Norreys, sent by Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, sailed to Rathlin Island. Sorley Boy MacDonnell had moved his ...

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-watching-the-rathlin-massacre.mp3 0:06 4 full Dunaneeny Castle: Death and Rebuilding https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. Sorley Boy MacDonnell died at Dunaneeny in 1590. Local tradition tells of a funeral procession that carried his body down from the headland, through Ballycastle, to his final resting place in the locked vaults of Bonamargy Friary on the eastern edge of town. He had outlived three...

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-death-and-rebuilding.mp3 0:06 5 full Dunaneeny Castle: What Remains https://qualla.com/dunaneeny-castle/ Photo credit Richard Luney from Northern Ireland, CC BY 2.0. The castle that stands today is a scheduled monument under the Northern Ireland Department for Communities. The remnants sit on a near-triangular headland behind a caravan park, enclosed by a deep ditch cut into the rock. Visitors find the foundations of the gatehouse, sections o...

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Image: Richard Luney from Northern Ireland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/dunaneeny-castle-wp/gcgd-dunaneeny-castle-what-remains.mp3 0:06 6 full