Qualla: Granuaile's Castle

Granuaile's Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Edge, CC BY-SA 2.0. The bartizans give it away. Two small corner turrets, one at each end of the parapet, are flashed with purple slate that catches the light differently from the grey stone around them. The flashing is not original. It was added in the 1820s, when this sixteenth-century O'Malley tower house was pressed into service as a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks. For two and a half centuries before that, Granuaile's Castle on the east coast of Clare Island had been a fortress of the Ni Mhaille - the O'Malleys - and one of the three strongholds from which Grainne, Grace O'Malley, ran the maritime operation that made her the most famous Irishwoman of the sixteenth century.

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Image: Steve Edge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Granuaile's Castle: On the East Coast

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0. The castle sits on the east shore of Clare Island, on a low rise above the water with a clear view across to the Mayo mainland. It is a few miles around the headland from the modern harbour where the ferry from Roonagh Quay lands, and it commands the approach that any vessel comi...

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Image: Colin Park | CC BY-SA 2.0

Granuaile's Castle: Granuaile's Three Towers

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0. Grace O'Malley - born around 1530, dead around 1603 - inherited the O'Malley clan's maritime tradition and built it into something formidable enough that Queen Elizabeth I granted her an audience at Greenwich in 1593. She operated from three tower houses on the Mayo coast: Granua...

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Image: Colin Park | CC BY-SA 2.0

Granuaile's Castle: From Stronghold to Barracks

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ridiculopathy, CC0. After the O'Malley power faded in the seventeenth century, the castle stood empty for generations until the Royal Irish Constabulary needed a barracks on Clare Island in the 1820s. They moved into Granuaile's Castle and adapted it to their purposes - sealing some openings, adding...

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Image: Ridiculopathy | CC0

Granuaile's Castle: What Stands Today

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Horn, CC BY-SA 2.0. Granuaile's Castle is a National Monument, accessible to visitors, with the main living room on the first floor opening to the two bartizans and a small garderobe (the medieval term for what was effectively the toilet, hung out from the wall over open air). The defensive features...

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Image: Graham Horn | CC BY-SA 2.0