Qualla: Northburgh Castle

Northburgh Castle: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MoorsoP, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walter Liath de Burgh died in this castle in February 1332, locked in a tower while his own cousin starved him to death. Derry's coat of arms still bears a skeleton in his memory. The stones that imprisoned him are still here too, looking out across Lough Foyle from a low rock platform on the north shore of Inishowen, where a fishing port called Greencastle now keeps the same view the medieval garrison once watched. The walls are roofless, the floors are sky, and the gatehouse leans into the wind like a stranded ship.

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Image: MoorsoP | CC BY-SA 4.0

Northburgh Castle: Built to Watch the Lough

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Richard Óg de Burgh, the second Earl of Ulster, completed Northburgh Castle in 1305 to keep one eye on Lough Foyle and the other on his own ambitions further west. He had been knighted by Edward I at Rhuddlan, in north Wales, and he brought Welsh ideas home with him. Architectura...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Northburgh Castle: Edward Bruce and the Brown Earl

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Corinna Schleiffer, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1316, in the middle of the Bruce invasion of Ireland, Edward Bruce captured Northburgh. He held it for two years until his death at Faughart in 1318, after which Richard Óg took the castle back. The de Burgh family kept it - and kept turning on itself. In 1331, Richard's grand...

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Image: Corinna Schleiffer | CC BY-SA 2.0

Northburgh Castle: What the Wind and Cannon Left

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cannon fire in the seventeenth century did most of the damage you see today. By the time peace returned, the castle was a shell. A large polygonal tower added in the fifteenth century stood ruined at one end of the oval enclosure; the twin-towered gatehouse stood ruined at the ot...

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Image: Oliver Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

Northburgh Castle: A Crossing Between Ireland and Wales

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Radosław Botev, CC BY 3.0 pl. Northburgh sits inside a larger story that the great Edwardian castles also tell. "Stylistic ideas were clearly moving between north-western Ireland and Wales in the late 1200s and early 1300s," one survey notes, with Ballintubber in Roscommon and Greencastle in Donegal as the tw...

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Image: Radosław Botev | CC BY 3.0 pl